BERMEJO-RUBIO, Fernando (2014) - Jesus and The Anti-Roman Resistance. A Reassessment of The Arguments. JSHJ 12

journal for the study of the historical jesus
12 (2014) 1-105
brill.com/jshj
Jesus and the Anti-Roman Resistance

A Reassessment of the Arguments
Fernando Bermejo-Rubio
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain
fjlmbr@yahoo.es
Abstract
Although the hypothesis according to which Jesus the Galilean was involved in
anti-Roman, rebellious thinking and activity has been advanced since the eigh-
teenth century, it is now held only by a minority of New Testament scholars. The
aim of the present article is to carefully survey the arguments supporting that
hypothesis, and at the same time putting them forward in a novel way. I contend
that the cumulative effect of these arguments is compelling, and that only a recon-
struction of Jesus in which the aspect of anti-Roman resistance is consistently
contemplated deserves credibility. The essay argues that there is in the Gospels a
great amount of material which points precisely in the direction of a seditious
Jesus, that this material configures a recurrent pattern, and that this pattern enjoys
the highest probability of historicity. Furthermore, I evaluate different interpreta-
tions which try to make sense of the pattern, with the aim of deciding which of
them is historically the most plausible. The essay then argues that the hypothesis
advanced here has the greatest explanatory power, that the proposed alternatives
are unconvincing and often far-fetched, and that every objection levelled against
the hypothesis can be reasonably countered. Finally, I point out the disastrous
implications for scholarship of the dismissal of the seditious material and of the
correlative rejection of the hypothesis.
I am deeply grateful to James G. Crossley, Tobias Hägerland, Ramiro Moar, Josep Montserrat,
Antonio Piñero and Gonzalo Puente Ojea, who read an earlier draft of this paper and kindly
made helpful suggestions and remarks. My heartfelt thanks also go to the anonymous review-
ers of the journal for their corrections and constructive criticisms, and to Jeff Morgan for his
generous revision and improvement of my English text.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/17455197-01202001

2 Bermejo-Rubio
Keywords
anti-Roman resistance – arguments – convergence patterns – Gospels – historical

plausibility – hypothesis – seditious material – explanatory power – implications –
objections and counter-objections – unconvincing alternatives
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impos-
sible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
sir arthur conan doyle, The Sign of the Four
…
Der bibelkundlichen Phantasie ist keine Grenze gesetzt! [There are no
limits to the fantasy of biblical scholarship!]
ulrich luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus
…
For Antonio, Gonzalo, James, Josep and the conspicuous minority of
scholars who look at Jesus of Nazareth without theological blinkers.
∵
1 Introductory Remarks: Why Rethink an Old Issue?
The hypothesis that the Galilean preacher Jesus of Nazareth, whatever else
he may have been, was involved in some kind of anti-Roman resistance in
both ideology and activity does not constitute an idiosyncratic view,
a passing fashion nor a boutade: in fact, it is as old as historical research on
Jesus itself, and it has been taken up on several occasion since the eigh-
teenth century until the present, by authors coming from very different
ideological, religious (Deist, Jewish, Christian) and cultural backgrounds.
Among those who have put forward versions of the hypothesis—Hermann
S. Reimarus, Charles C. Hennell, Karl Kautsky, Robert Eisler, Samuel
G.F. Brandon, Joel Carmichael, Hyam Maccoby—there are independent
thinkers, biblical scholars, Marxist philosophers and liberal historians of
journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

Jesus And The Anti-roman Resistance 3
religions with disparate orientations.1 Therefore, unlike what some uncriti-

cal voices have blithely claimed, it is not a prejudiced perspective that accounts
for its emergence or its intermittent reappearance, and that allegedly could
undermine its reliability.2
Admittedly, however, the hypothesis has won little scholarly support. Time
and time again, it has been severely criticized and, occasionally, even ridiculed,
with the result that nowadays the view of a Jesus involved in anti-Roman ideol-
ogy and/or activities is hardly held in scholarship, remaining a minority view.3
Such a view is usually dismissed, at best as ‘too radical’ and outdated; at
worst as woefully prejudiced and refuted.4 The notion that Jesus was a politi-
cally innocuous preacher, who was not a threat whatsoever for the Romans,
1 For a (somewhat dated and biased) survey, see E. Bammel, ‘The Revolution Theory from
Reimarus to Brandon’, in E. Bammel and C.F.D. Moule (eds.), Jesus and the Politics of His Day
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 11–68. For a popularizing, but more sym-
pathetic and up-to-date presentation, see A. Piñero, ‘Jesús y la política de su tiempo’, in
E. Ruiz Barrachina, El discípulo (Barcelona: Ediciones B, 2010), pp. 217–311.
2 As Brandon shrewdly remarked, the attempts to make an ideological reduction of the
hypothesis are themselves reducible to absurdity: ‘There is perhaps an unintentional irony in
the fact that it is Dr. Wink who thinks that my service as a Regular Army Chaplain has led me
to interpret Christian Origins in terms of military involvement, and yet he also thinks that
I depict “the Jesus which Social Christianity needs in order to justify involvement in revolu-
tion”’ (S.G.F. Brandon, ‘Jesus and the Zealots: Aftermath’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library
Manchester 54.1 [1971], pp. 47–66, here 50–51).
3 See B. Dunham, Heroes and Heretics. A Social History of Dissent (New York: A. Knopf, 1964),
pp. 50–57; D.K. Pike and R.S. Kennedy, The Wilderness Revolt: A New View of the Life and Death
of Jesus Based on Ideas and Notes of the Late Bishop James A. Pike (New York: Doubleday,
1972); M. Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture (New York: Vintage
Books, 1974), pp. 177–203; G. Puente Ojea, Ideología e Historia. La formación del cristianismo
como fenómeno ideológico (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1974), pp. 108–122; 200–213; idem, El
Evangelio de Marcos (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1992); J. Montserrat Torrents, El galileo armado.
Historia laica de Jesús (Madrid: Edaf, 2007); Z. Garber, ‘The Jewish Jesus: A Partisan’s
Imagination’, in idem (ed.), The Jewish Jesus: Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation (West
Lafayette, in: Purdue University Press, 2011), pp. 13–19. See also G. Carey, Sinners: Jesus and
His Earliest Followers (Waco, tx: Baylor University Press, 2009), pp. 79–96.
4 According to S. McKnight (A New Vision for Israel [Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 1999],
p. 229, n. 70), that view ‘was dealt a fatal blow’ in the collective volume edited by E. Bammel
and C.F.D. Moule. ‘There is no necessity to refute in detail here Brandon’s theory of a zealotic
Jesus since there is large-scale agreement that it is far too one-sided, hypothetical and based
on unfounded assumptions’ (S. Freyne, Galilee: From Alexander the Great to Hadrian 323bce
to 135ce [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998], p. 223). This kind of statement is unfortunately
quoted as Scripture by generations of graduate students and scholars.

4 Bermejo-Rubio
commends itself to many.5 That Jesus preached nonviolence remains virtually

a dogma.6 And even among scholars who refer to Jesus as ‘revolutionary’, most
of them deny that he was involved in some kind of subversive armed activity.
Whilst a minority assumes that Jesus was involved in anti-Roman resistance,
an overwhelming majority claims that he was not. Who is to be trusted? And
why should we tackle again such a vexed question, which has been disputed
for centuries, if most scholars claim it has been definitely settled? Below I set
out the reasons which have led me to deal with this problem,7 and to think that
it is worthwhile tackling it again.
First, truth and cogency of arguments have nothing to do with the number
of scholars holding a certain stance. Quantity of reference is not equivalent
to quality of reasoning. All the less convincing is the force of the majority,
when there are good reasons to surmise that the presence of ideological
constraints might be at work. It is indeed a repeatedly proven fact that the
5 ‘In no single instance is Jesus found in collision with the Roman government, not even at his
death. The view that Jesus was executed by Rome as a social and political revolutionist is a
pure fiction, with no basis whatever in the record… Only as a tool was Rome brought into the
matter at all’ (C.R. Bowen, ‘Jesus and the Social Revolution’, The Biblical World 42.1 [1913], pp.
26–30, here 28–29); ‘His ministry for the Kingdom was devoid of political, i.e. revolutionary
inspiration. He had no anti-Roman bias. He embraces the doctrine of non-resistance to evil’
(G. Vermes, The Authentic Gospel of Jesus [London: Penguin, 2004], p. 401); ‘The tradition of
his words and works in general do not indicate the slightest interest in changing the forms or
structures of temporal power, in replacing one system of government with another, or in
question as to whether those who ruled were believers or pagans… Jesus does not question
the authority of Rome’s client Herod Antipas…does not question the authority of Rome’s
collaborators the Sadducean high-priests…does not question the authority of the pagan
Caesar’ (C. Bryan, Render to Caesar: Jesus, the Early Church, and the Roman Superpower
[Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], pp. 50–51; according to this author, Jesus’ concerns
were not ‘specifically anti-Roman any more than they were anti-Jewish or anti-Parthian or
anti-anything else’, p. 51); ‘Jesus’ mission and message were concerned with a kingdom whose
chief characteristics were neither political nor external’ (H.W. Hoehner, Herod Antipas
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972], p. 208). Popularizing works have contributed
to spread the view of Jesus as disconnected of revolutionary longings; see e.g. H. Küng, Christ
Sein (München/Zürich: R. Piper & Co., 1974), pp. 175–83.
6 See e.g. A. Le Donne, Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know it? (Grand
Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 2011), p. 86: ‘and began to preach nonviolence’.
7 Given that deep-rooted ideological interests are all-pervasive in the field of the beginnings of
Christianity and Jesus studies, and given that a usual reproach made to scholars holding the
view of an anti-Roman Jesus is that their study is not to investigate sine ira et studio, but to
demonstrate a preconceived opinion (Martin Hengel dixit), I would like to declare that the
idea of a seditious Jesus was not my starting-point. I have changed my mind as the result of a
renewed survey of the evidence.

Christian-dominated field of Jesus research is too often distorted by theologi-

cal prejudices. This has happened for instance with Jesus’ Jewishness,8 and a
fortiori happens with any view of him as a seditionist. Quite a few themes are
repressed for the simple reason that they do not fit well with the dogmatic
commitments or the politically correct. The view which posits the existence of
links between Jesus and violence, and his possible role as a supporter of an
insurrectionist stance against the control of Palestine by the Roman Empire,
seems to be particularly disturbing.
Secondly, at least in some cases the rejection of the hypothesis seems to rely
on non-argumentative procedures, and whoever dares to defend it quickly
becomes an unwelcome person. In fact, attempts at personally discrediting
scholars advancing the view of a seditious Jesus are not infrequent. Joachim
Jeremias referred to Reimarus’s epoch-breaking essay, Von dem Zwecke Jesu und
seiner Jünger (On the Goal of Jesus and his Disciples), as a ‘hate-filled pamphlet’,
and labelled his approach as ‘clearly absurd and amateurish’.9 Disparaging
references to Brandon’s alleged lack of competence in New Testament exegesis
are also found,10 and likewise portrayals of his work as ‘anti-Christian’ are
not infrequent.11 The proponents of a seditious Jesus are often charged with
8 For centuries, Jesus’ Jewishness has usually been repressed in Christian quarters (let us
remember the classic critical analyses of G.F. Moore and E.P. Sanders), and the obvious
fact that no serious scholar can today afford to downplay such a self-evident aspect can-
not make us forget that this perverse de-contextualization has been the prevailing trend.
Other examples are the reiterated attempts to deny or downplay Jesus’ apocalyptic escha-
tology, or the topic of judgment. There seem to be a good number of exceedingly unpalat-
able results in Jesus research. For surveys of some examples in contemporary works, see
J.G. Crossley, Jesus in an Age of Terror: Scholarly Projects for a New American Century
(London and Oakville: Equinox, 2008), pp. 177–86; F. Bermejo-Rubio, ‘Why is John the
Baptist Used as a Foil for Jesus? Leaps of Faith and Oblique Anti-Judaism in Contemporary
Scholarship’, jshj 11 (2013), pp. 170–96.
9 J. Jeremias, ‘The Present Position in the Controversy Concerning the Problem of the
Historical Jesus 1’, The Expository Times 69 (1958), pp. 333–39, here 333–34.
10 ‘Brandon is an outsider in the New Testament guild’ (J.H. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus: Vicit
Agnus Noster [Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 1972], p. 2, n. 2); Mauro Pesce suggested that
Brandon was not sufficiently familiar with the sources: ‘fonti quali il N.T., per le quali forse
non aveva una sufficiente competenza’, and adds that his work is ‘difficilmente accettabile
all’interno della ricerca scientifica sul N.T.’ (M. Pesce, ‘Ricerche recenti sulla dimensione
politica della vicenda di Gesù’, in the collective volume Conoscenza storica di Gesù
[Brescia: Paideia, 1978], pp. 33–101, here 66).
11 ‘It is, of course, an attack on Christianity, as complete and total an attack as can possibly
be imagined’ (B. Vawter, ‘Review of S. G. F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots’, ThS 20 (1969),
pp. 498–500, here 498).

6 Bermejo-Rubio
assuming that ‘the evidence of the Gospels is ex hypothesi contaminated’,12

thereby implying that they have a prejudiced stance against the Christian
sources, which they would deem a priori tendentious.13 This kind of exceed-
ingly unfair and misleading (not to say morally perverse) judgments and ad
hominem fallacies are repeated time and again.14 Such abandonment of
the argumentative field betrays not only the irruption of deep-rooted emo-
tions15—something other than disinterested search for truth is at stake
here—but also the inability of many scholars to understand that the start-
ing-point for constructing the hypothesis is not an arbitrary and aprioristic
assumption, nor a hostile stance towards Christianity, but an attentive
realization of the great number of blatant inconsistencies and puzzling
improbabilities with which the Gospels themselves, and especially the
Passion accounts, are riddled,16 all of which make a critical assessment of
the evidence imperative.17
12 A.E. Harvey, ‘Review of S. G. F. Brandon’s Jesus and the Zealots—The Trial of Jesus of
Nazareth’, jts 22 (1971), pp. 200–202, here 201.
13 In fact, Harvey refers to ‘Professor Brandon’s initial contempt for the Gospels’ (Harvey,
‘Review’, p. 202).
14 See e.g. the following statements concerning Reimarus’s work in a couple of pages of
Ben F. Meyer’s The Aims of Jesus (London: scm, 1979), pp. 29–31: ‘The driving purpose of
the essay was to discredit Christianity’; ‘Never before had the gospels been looked at so
hard and so long from so limited an angle of vision’; ‘The essay on Jesus is as much the
fruit of obsession as of Enlightenment philosophy. The explosions of what Schweitzer
called Reimarus’s “lofty scorn” are likely to strike the reader today as merely paranoid.’
15 The reason seems to be that which S. Brandon declared in the Preface to one of his books:
‘To many people…the very asking of the question will cause offence and suggest a dis-
tressing skepticism about that which is sacred. For them there is no question to discuss:
the incarnated Son of God could never have taken part in Jewish-Roman politics. His
mission to save mankind by his own vicarious death was part of a divine plan that tran-
scended space and time, and it could not have become involved in, and conditioned by,
the political relations of Jews and Romans in first-century Judaea’ (S.G.F. Brandon, Jesus
and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity [Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1967], p. xiii).
16 This has been clearly stated by Brandon: ‘Serious ground for doubting the Gospel presen-
tation is actually provided by that presentation itself’ (Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots,
p. 2). Referring to the Barabbas episode and the alleged custom of releasing a prisoner at the
Passover, suspect on several grounds, he writes: ‘Mark’s presentation of the episode, as we have
seen, is so manifestly absurd that it suggests some explanation other than that of lack of logic’
(Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, p. 4). See also K. Kautsky, Der Ursprung des Christentums. Eine
historische Untersuchung (Stuttgart: Verlag von J.H.W. Dietz Nachf., 1908), p. 389.
17 Harvey’s attempt to counter this fact by claiming that ‘countless judicious readers, by
no means all of them convinced Christians, have not found’ the Gospel account too

Thirdly, even in argumentative contexts, the rejection of the hypothesis

might be due, at least in some cases, either to misunderstandings and
caricatures,18 or to the lack of a clear distinction between secondary and sub-
stantial objections. I freely admit that some of the arguments levelled against
the champions of the hypothesis are legitimate and contain fair criticisms: of
course, not everything in the works of authors advocating an insurrectionist
Jesus is valid, all the less so because this view has sometimes fuelled sensation-
alistic and whimsical claims. For instance, there are idiosyncratic and hardly
defensible ideas in Robert Eisler’s work,19 and Brandon has been rightly faulted
for positing an organized ‘Zealot’ political party in Jesus’ age.20 As far as I can
see, however, the main objections do not stand up to examination, and below
I argue that the claim that the hypothesis of a seditionist Jesus has been refuted
is wholly unwarranted. Moreover, the frequent overall rejection of the hypoth-
esis conveniently tends to forget that there are different versions of it, and that
some of them are more nuanced and plausible than others.
ludicrous for belief (‘Review’, p. 202) is unwarranted, as it lies on the ad populum fallacy. It
proves nothing but the readiness of many people to uncritically accept captivating and
moving stories with which they are usually familiar since childhood.
18 As Brandon himself denounced; see S.G.F. Brandon, ‘“Jesus and the Zealots”: A Correction’,
nts 17 (1971), p. 453. Although he made a distinction between Jesus and the Zealots, he has
been repeatedly charged with the idea that Jesus himself was a Zealot. See e.g. J. Gwyn
Griffiths, ‘The Disciple’s Cross’, nts 16 (1970), pp. 358–64, esp. 362; Harvey, ‘Review’, p. 200;
Bryan, Render to Caesar, p. 54.
19 R. Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣΑΣ. Die messianische Unabhängigkeitsbewegung
vom Auftreten Johannes des Täufers bis zum Untergang Jakobs des Gerechten (2 vols.;
Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1929–1930). That Eisler overstated
and spoilt his case by pushing his conclusions too far through idiosyncratic moves is an
opinion shared even by Brandon: ‘Most critics…reveal that they have little understanding
of what is valuable and what is extravagant in Eisler’s work, or of the extent to which
I disagree with him, which is fully documented in my books. In my view, few scholars
today can match Eisler’s erudition… Unfortunately Eisler too often spoilt his case by
pushing his conclusions too far’ (‘Aftermath’, p. 48, n. 4).
20 As Kirsopp Lake had remarked as early as 1920, ‘Zealot’ as a party designation (at least,
according to Josephus) was not yet in use in Jesus’ time. See M. Borg, ‘The Currency of the
Term “Zealot”’, jts 22 (1971), pp. 504–512, here 511–12; M. Smith, ‘Zealots and Sicarii: Their
Origins and Relationship’, htr 64 (1971), pp. 1–19. This, however, does not put into ques-
tion the claim that Jesus must have sympathized with the resistance movements, for this
conclusion can be reached independently of any discussion of ‘Zealots’ in the strictest
sense. In this paper I will occasionally use ‘Zealots’ in the context of Jesus’ time, but only
for the sake of setting forth the position of some scholars using the term.

8 Bermejo-Rubio
A fourth reason spurring me on to tackle again a much-debated issue is the

current discussion in the field on methodological aspects. On the one hand,
recent studies on confabulation have led us to a deeper realization of the fal-
libility of human memory; the application of this research to the survey of the
Gospels should unsettle would-be historians of Jesus.21 On the other hand, an
increasing dissatisfaction can be perceived in the use of the authenticity crite-
ria: quite a few scholars are claiming that the traditional criteria should be
marginalized, not to say abandoned; but these objections do not necessarily
lead us to adopt a sceptic stance, and in fact it has been argued that the exis-
tence of recurring patterns in the available sources is one of the means which
allows us to carry out a quite trustworthy reconstruction of the historical figure
of Jesus.22 I think the presence of such patterns should be taken into account
and, when applied to the above-mentioned hypothesis, proves fruitful.
The aim of the present article is to carefully survey the arguments support-
ing the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus, and at the same time putting it forth in
a novel way.23 I will argue that a reconstruction of Jesus in which the aspect of
anti-Roman resistance is seriously and consistently contemplated is the most
plausible—in fact the only plausible—view of the Galilean preacher.
2 Evidence of a Seditious Stance: Detecting a Pattern
While the presence of the numerous inconsistencies and improbabilities with

which the Gospel accounts of the Passion are riddled betrays the existence of
21 It is odd that the overwhelming majority of scholars, despite the uncertainty of our his-
torical knowledge, seem to hold the deepest conviction—not to say that they seem to
know—that Jesus had nothing to do with anti-Roman resistance, and that Brandon’s and
Eisler’s hypotheses are utterly wrong. See, for instance: ‘Ganz gewiß war die sogenannte
“Tempelreinigung” kein gewaltsamer Aufstandsversuch…sondern nur eine provokative
Gleichnishandlung’ (M. Hengel, Christus und die Macht—Die Macht Christi und die
Ohnmacht der Christen. Zur Problematik einer ‘Politischen Theologie’ in der Geschichte der
Kirche [Stuttgart: Calwer, 1974], p. 18, my emphasis). This kind of expression is used by the
same scholar who made this kind of criticism: ‘Brandon constantly uses apodeictic adverbs
such as “surely” or “indubitably”, at points where the unprejudiced reader has by no means
as yet begun to demand any such undubitable assurance’ (M. Hengel, ‘Review of S.G.F.
Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots’, Journal of Semitic Studies 14 [1969], pp. 231–40, here 235).
22 See infra, sections 2 and 3.
23 By ‘seditious’ I mean that Jesus was indeed involved in ideology and/or activities of anti-
Roman resistance. For a more thorough discussion of the specific kind of such resistance,
see infra, 4.2.

a serious problem and is the starting-point for carrying out a critical question-
ing, a decisive factor in the emergence of the hypothesis is the fact that the
Gospels contain a great amount of material which—at least at first glance—
point precisely in the sense of a seditious Jesus,24 thereby justifying that the
hypothesis should be advanced and carefully examined.
Here we find the first argument supporting our case. The text of the Gospels
is not a seamless tunic. The fact that they are not all of a piece, but contain
conflicting versions, spurs us to scrutinize them and to weigh up which is the
most reliable one. Just as the sources retain incidents which show the exis-
tence of friendly relationships between Jesus and Pharisees (thereby contra-
dicting the tendency to establish an alleged overall mutual hatred and enmity
between them),25 or point to the fact that John the Baptist and Jesus were very
similar figures (thereby contradicting the tendency to subordinate the former
to the latter), they have also retained quite a few elements pointing in the
direction of a seditious Jesus. As the items are scattered throughout the Gospels
and they are not usually gathered together,26 it is advisable to enumerate them
in order to show their convergence:
1) Jesus was crucified, i.e., executed with the usual Roman punishment for
slaves and rebellious provincials, after the Roman governor pronounced
sentence against him.
2) Two λῃσταί were crucified along with Jesus, and on either side of him.27
Jesus was crucified in the middle of two insurrectionists.
24 ‘So sanft und ergeben Jesus sonst erscheint, gelegentlich macht er eine Äusserung ganz
anderer Art, die annehmen läßt, daß er, mochte er wirklich existiert haben oder bloß eine
erträumte Idealgestalt sein, in der ursprünglichen Überlieferung als Rebell lebte, der
wegen einer verunglückten Empörung gekreuzigt wurde’ (Kautsky, Ursprung, p. 384).
25 Compare e.g. Lk. 13.31 with Mk 3.6.
26 Not even in the works advancing the idea of Jesus as a seditionist, but see Brandon, Jesus
and the Zealots, pp. 322–58; idem, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (London:
spck, 1951), pp. 101–107. The opponents of the thesis, at best, enumerate only a few
data; see e.g. O. Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären seiner Zeit (2nd edn; Tübingen:
Mohr [Siebeck], 1970), pp. 21–23; J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids, mi:
Eerdmans, 2003), p. 623; W.D. Davies, The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity
and Jewish Territorial Doctrine (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994; orig. edn 1974),
pp. 337–39.
27 λῃστής is often translated as ‘robber’ or ‘brigand’. This is, however, the word Josephus uses
to designate Jewish insurgents. Given that, according to the available evidence, when the
Romans controlled Judaea until the Jewish War, they only crucified political rebels, by far
the most reasonable assumption is that the two λῃσταί were revolutionaries. Furthermore,

10 Bermejo-Rubio
3) The titulus crucis was ‘King of the Jews’. The massive presence of this title
in Pilate’s interrogation28 indicates that it figured prominently as the
basis of the accusation against Jesus, and the fact that Jesus is not
recorded as denying the charge suggests that he considered himself as a
king29 or God’s viceroy (see also Jn 19.21; Lk. 22.29–30).
4) The mocking of Jesus by the soldiers in the employ of Rome, involving a
burlesque parody of kingly epiphany (which includes clothing him in a
purple cloak, putting on him a crown of thorns, and kneeling down in
raillery homage to him: Mk 15.16–20; Jn 19.1–5) affords us with evidence
that, to the troops, Jesus claimed to be a king.
5) A heavily armed party was sent to seize Jesus secretly and at night
(Mk 14.43, 48; Mt. 24.47, 52).30
6) According to Lk. 22.36, on a critical occasion, Jesus ensured that his dis-
ciples were armed, by ordering them to buy swords.
7) At least some disciples of Jesus, if not all of them, went about with con-
cealed weapons, as attested by Lk. 22.38, 22.49 (‘Lord, shall we strike with
the sword?’) and Mk 14.47, and implied in Lk. 22.36.
8) All four Gospels (Mk 14.47; Mt. 26.51; Lk. 22.38, 49–50; Jn 18.10–11) record
that armed resistance (involving swords) was offered in Gethsemane.
9) Besides the verbal violence implied in several sayings of Jesus (e.g. Mt.
10.34; Lk. 12.49), the Temple episode involved some sort of forcible activ-
ity. It is not clear what really happened there nor the scale of what hap-
pened,31 but it was carried out through harsh behaviour (see Jn 2.15).
10) The ‘triumphal entry’ into Jerusalem was a prearranged action and
involved a high messianic temperament and clear political claims in
Jn 18.40 uses the term for Barabbas, who according to Mk 15.7 ‘was in prison with the
insurrectionists (στασιασταί)’; the reference to στάσις and στασιασταί betrays a revolution-
ary atmosphere that coheres well with the political interpretation of λῃσταί. It is unfortu-
nate and misleading that many scholars go on translating and understanding this term
merely as ‘robbers’, ‘thieves’, and the like.
28 Mk 15.2, 9, 12, 18, 26; parallels in Mt. 27.11 and Lk. 23.3; Jn 18.33, 37–39; 19.3, 19, 21.
29 On the probable reliability of this aspect see D.C. Allison, Constructing Jesus: Memory,
Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids, mi: Baker Academic, 2010), pp. 233–40, 244–47.
30 According to Jn 18.3, 12, the arresting party is a cohort (σπεῖρα) with its command assigned
to a tribune (χιλίαρχος), accompanied by a contingent drawn from the Jewish Temple
police. See also Mk 15.16.
31 The possibilities range from a symbolic intervention (Sanders, Fredriksen, along with a
host of scholars) to a full occupation of the Temple area (Kautsky, Eisler, Maccoby,
Brandon).

words32 and deeds,33 both from Jesus (who accepted without demur the
kind of welcome reserved for a claimant to the throne) and his followers.
11) Several passages in Mark (11.1–6, 11, 19; 14.12–16) describe preparations and
Jesus’ activities in Jerusalem which presuppose secrecy and caution,
clandestine connection with supporters within the city, and even the use
of some kind of password.
12) According to Jn 11.47–50, the possibility that Jesus remains untroubled is
connected by the high priest with a virtually sure intervention of the
Romans, with serious consequences.
13) According to Jn 18.19, the high priest questioned Jesus not only about his
teaching, but also about his disciples, what betrays a certain apprehen-
sion regarding Jesus’ circle.34
14) The preaching of the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God had an
unmistakably political character.35 The establishment of God’s will ‘on
earth’ (Mt. 6.10/Lk. 11.2) would leave no place for the Roman rule, as it
entails the longing for an approaching national deliverance.
15) Jesus promised that his twelve disciples would sit on thrones to judge and
rule Israel’s twelve restored tribes, what implies the disappearance of the
actual rulers of Israel, both Romans and Jews.36
16) The concrete socio-political, material dimension of the kingdom of God
expected by Jesus and his disciples is further proved by the hopes to grant
and receive material, this-worldly rewards (Mk 10.28–30, 35–41; Lk. 22.24,
30; see Mk 9.33).
32 ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’ (Mt. 21.9); ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the
Lord’ (Lk. 19.38); ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, blessed is the king of
Israel’ (Jn 12.13). For the acclamation of Jesus as ‘Son of David’, see also Mk 10.47; 11.10.
33 The placing of clothing on the road and the cutting of branches are specific acts of hom-
age. Palm branches (Jn 12.13) were nationalistic symbols (see 1 Macc. 13.51; 2 Macc. 10.7).
See W.R. Farmer, Maccabees, Zealots, and Josephus: An Inquiry into Jewish Nationalism in
the Greco-Roman Period (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), pp. 125–58.
34 ‘If it be read in the light of the synoptic narratives it may be taken to indicate apprehen-
sion of an armed rising with Jesus at its head: “Why do you gather followers? How do you
propose to exercise the authority you have over them?”’ (C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According
to St John [London: spck, 1978], p. 527).
35 This was already clearly recognized by J. Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1900), p. 123: ‘Es erscheint mir einfach selbstver-
ständlich, dass unter den Gütern, die das Reich Gottes bringen soll, die Befreiung von der
Fremdherrschaft mit obenan steht.’
36 Mt. 19.28; Lk. 22.28–30. Some texts seem to express a longing for national unity: Mt. 23.37;
Lk. 13.34.

12 Bermejo-Rubio
17) According to the disciples’ own statements, Jesus’ aim was to restore the
kingdom to Israel. Both in Lk. 24.21 and Acts 1.6, Jesus does not revise his
disciples’ view of the kingdom, but only their conception of its
imminence.
18) Several sayings attributed to Jesus, with an early ring about them (the dis-
paraging words addressed to the Syro-phoenician woman in Mk 7.26–27,
and the passages reflecting a low esteem of—even contempt for—pagan
people: Mt. 10.5; 15.24; 18.17) reveal the circumscription of Jesus’ preaching
to Israel and his nationalistic, not to say chauvinistic, tones.37
19) Even if the belonging of some of Jesus’ disciples to organized groups of
anti-Roman resistance is doubtful,38 the violent disposition of at least
some of them is well attested in the tradition. The title ‘Boanerges’ for
James and John (Mk 3.17) suggests a rowdy reputation and a hot temper
which are significantly displayed in Mk 9.38, and more harshly by their
desire to resort to violence against a village of uncooperative Samaritans
(Lk. 9.51–56).39
20) Jesus impressed upon his followers that discipleship is synonymous not
only with conflicts, sacrifice and suffering, but also with danger of death
(Mt. 10.34–39; Lk. 12.4; 14.25–27).
21) The saying about ‘taking up the cross’ (Mk 8.34–35 and par. in Lk. 9.23 and
Mt. 16.24; GosThom 55b)—and the mention of the cross in Mt. 10.38/Lk.
14.27—indicate an acute awareness of the superpower’s repressive
violence and hostility between Jesus and the Empire.
22) Several Jesus’ followers—Peter (Mk 14.29, 31/Lk. 22.31–33) and the Sons of
Zebedee (Mk 10.38–39)—expressed the commitment to die with him.
37 ‘He was a Jewish nationalist’ (J. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching
[London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1925], p. 285); ‘A narrow-minded chauvinist’ (Vermes, The
Authentic Gospel of Jesus, p. 415); ‘A chauvinistic flavour’ (P. Winter, On the Trial of Jesus
[2nd edn; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1974], p. 193).
38 This depends on the meaning of the much-debated terms ‘Qananaios’, ‘Barjona’ and
‘Iskariotes’. As is well-known, Brandon, Maccoby and Cullmann (Der Staat im Neuen
Testament [2nd edn; Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 1961], pp. 9–12) accepted the connection
of some disciples with rebels, but many others have denied it. See e.g. R. Brown, The Death
of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave (2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1994), II,
pp. 1413–1416; J.A. Morin, ‘Les deux derniers des douze: Simon le Zélote et Judas Iskariôth’,
rb 80 (1975), pp. 332–49; C. Mézange, ‘Simon le Zélote était-il un révolutionnaire?’, Biblica
81 (2000), pp. 489–506; M. Bockmuehl, ‘Simon Peter’s Names in Jewish Sources’, jjs 55
(2004), pp. 58–80, esp. 65–66.
39 On the Hebrew and Aramaic words from which the nickname may have been derived, see
J.T. Rook, ‘“Boanerges, Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17)’, jbl 100 (1981), pp. 94–95.

23) The Gospels witness an antagonistic relationship between Jesus and

Herod Antipas,40 who kept a watchful eye on Jesus and his followers, and
‘wanted to kill’ Jesus (Lk. 13.31). Jesus made disparaging comments about
the tetrarch, feared him and repeatedly fled from him.41
24) There is evidence indicating that Jesus opposed the payment of tribute to
Rome. A reading of Mk 12.13–17 in the sense that nothing whatever is
owed to Caesar is strongly supported by Lk. 23.2.
25) According to Lk. 23.2, 5, 14, the main charge levelled against Jesus was
that of instigating sedition and ‘subverting our nation’ (the verbs used are
ἀναστρέφω/upset, διαστρέφω/stir up, and ἀνασείω/incite).
26) The episode of the Gerasene exorcism (Mk 5.1–13) seems to have a double
political reference: the name of the unclean spirit is ‘Legion’ (which
implies a negative view of the Roman army), and the Old Testament
background is the drowning of the oppressive Egyptian army in Exod.
14.22–15.19.
27) Several passages establish a link between the preaching and healing
activities of Jesus and popular uprisings (Jn 6.15; Mk 14.2: ‘tumult of the
people’; Mk 6.30–45). The crowd is reported to have sought forcibly to
install Jesus as king.42
28) Lk. 1–2 abounds in strongly nationalistic longings which contemplate the
subjugation and humiliation of the Gentiles (esp. 1.32–33 and 1.51–55,
where the maiden Myriam speaks as a Maccabean, in a martial atmo-
sphere).43 Likewise Zechariah in Lk. 1.68–74 (see also Lk. 2.38).44
40 Mk 6.14/Lk. 9.9; ‘That fox’ (Lk. 13.32); Mk 8.15 (‘Beware of…the leaven of Herod’); ‘The reed
shaken by the wind’ (Mt. 11.7) might be an ironic reference to Antipas (see G. Theissen,
‘Das schwankende Rohr (Mt 11, 7) und die Gründungsmünzen von Tiberias’, in idem,
Lokalkolorit und Zeitgeschichte in den Evangelien. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der synop-
tischen Tradition [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989], pp. 26–44). In Q 9.58, Jesus
seems to have used veiled allegory to refer to Herod and the elites of Sepphoris (‘the
birds’).
41 See Mk 6.45, 53; 7.31; 8.10, 22, 27; 9.2, 30, 33; 10.1.
42 See H.W. Montefiore, ‘Revolt in the Desert? (Mark VI.30ff.)’, nts 8 (1961–62), pp. 135–41.
43 See P. Winter, ‘Magnificat and Benedictus—Maccabean Psalms?’, Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library 37 (1954–55), pp. 328–47; pace R. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (2nd
edn; London: G. Chapman, 1993), pp. 350–55; J. Massyngberde Ford, ‘Zealotism and the
Lukan Infancy Narratives’, NovT 18 (1976), pp. 280–92.
44 ‘The Jewish contemporary would likely have heard in this song the echoes of the song of
Hannah (1 Sam. 2), whose imagery is not only revolutionary…but also military’ (Yoder, The
Politics of Jesus, p. 21, n. 1); ‘Even at that late date when Luke complied his story for
Theophilus, presumably with some apologetic concern to avoid giving the impression
that Christians were insurrectionists, he still had no choice but to report that the pious

14 Bermejo-Rubio
29) Lk. 2.2 defines the time of Jesus’ birth by the census, an event that in the
chronicles of Josephus (A.J. XVIII 1–10) is significant as a watershed in
recent Jewish history, which heralds the birth of the anti-Roman resis-
tance movement.
30) In Acts 5.35–39, Rabbi Gamaliel compares Jesus and his followers with
Theudas and his movement as well as with Judas the Galilean and his
movement.
31) Jesus made several critical and ironical comments on the rulers (Lk. 22.25;
Mk 10.42–45; Lk. 7.25/Mt. 11.8), as tyrannically exercising absolute domi-
nation. This criticism is linked to Jesus’ aggressive attitude towards the
rich.
32) The messianic overtones in Jesus’ story betray a politically charged claim:
see e.g. Lk. 23.2 (‘saying that he himself is Christ a King’);45 Lk. 4.16–19
(the messianic prophecy of Isa. 61.1–2 refers to liberation of the
oppressed).
33) The tradition betrays the disciples’ deep fears of being arrested and pre-
sumably executed (both in the flight depicted in the Passion narrative,
and in the account of Peter’s betrayal).
34) Mk 15.7 and Lk. 23.19 mention a well-known insurrection in Jerusalem
(ἡ στάσις), supposedly shortly before Jesus’ arrest, in which the rebels
(οἱ στασιασταί) had caused fatal casualties.
35) The Book of Revelation has preserved the memory of a conception of
Christ as the fierce warrior par excellence: he will fight with the holy ones
who will live with him at the end of human history, and is ‘clad in a robe
dipped in blood’ (Rev. 19.12–16; see Rev. 14.20). In it, the sword is the sym-
bol of the Christus triumphans (Rev. 1.16; 2.12, 16; 19.15, 21).
The mere enumeration of these items shows that the evidence at our disposal
is not inconsiderable.46 If the historical record had contained only a few
hopes which awaited Jesus were those in which the suffering of Israel was discerned in all
its social and political reality, and the work of the Awaited One was to be of the same stuff’
(Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, p. 23).
45 For the combination of Messiahship and kingship, see Mk 15.32. According to the tradi-
tion preserved in y. Ta‘an. 4.8/27 and Lam. Rab. 2.2, R. Akiba acclaimed Bar Kokhba as
messiah by saying: ‫‘( הוא מלכא משיחא‬He is the king Messiah’).
46 In fact, the use of the plural πολλά in describing the chief priests’ accusation (Mk 15.3)
‘suggests that they specified more than one instance of sedition’ (Brandon, Jesus and the
Zealots, p. 6, n. 1). Pilate’s subsequent admonition of Jesus refers to ‘how many things
(πόσα) they accuse thee of’ (Mk 15.4). In Jn 11.47 the signs which Jesus does and which
could make the Romans react are also designated as πολλά σημεῖα.

elements, one might easily question or downplay its significance, but the con-
vergence of so many different and closely related items constitutes a pattern,
inevitably creating a Gestalt, a complex configuration of interrelated elements
that requires explanation.
All these items derive from the canonical sources (the Synoptic Gospels,
John, Acts, and some other books of the New Testament), and they appear in
different kinds of literary forms: Jesus’ sayings, words assigned to other charac-
ters (both followers and adversaries), kerygmatic summaries, exorcism
accounts, stories, and so on. At the same time, this material is at odds with the
overall impression conveyed by the evangelists, according to which Jesus was a
spiritual master having nothing to do with the dirty matters of politics in first-
century Roman-controlled Judaea.47 In the next section I will make some
reflections fleshing out and supporting the significance of the pattern.
3 On the Historicity of the Pattern
Once having detected the existence of a pattern, we have reached just the
starting-point. A preliminary issue to be dealt with is how reliable as historical
evidence the above-mentioned items are. In fact, many scholars have often
explained those items as community sayings or editorial creations.48 With the
probable exception of the crucifixion, the reliability of virtually every element
has been denied. So how can we make a reasonable decision about whether
this material is truly historical or not? Below I argue that we have several ways
of establishing with a reasonable degree of certainty that it substantially goes
back to Jesus.
3.1 The Reliability of the Convergent Patterns

In recent years, the usefulness of the so-called criteria of authenticity in Jesus’
studies is being increasingly questioned.49 Alongside the limits of the several
47 ‘It is not possible for an objective historian to dismiss all the military inferences related to
the teachings of and about Jesus’ (G.W. Buchanan, Jesus: The King and His Kingdom
[Macon, ga: Mercer University Press, 1984], p. 247).
48 The claim that the seditious material reflects the interests of only some later followers of
Jesus who were or became anti-Roman was already convincingly countered by Eisler,
ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, pp. 254–56.
49 A landmark has been the work by D.C. Allison, Constructing Jesus; idem, The Historical
Christ and the Theological Jesus (Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 2009); idem, ‘How
to Marginalize the Traditional Criteria of Authenticity’, in T. Holmén and S.E. Porter
(eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (4 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2010), I, pp. 3–30.

16 Bermejo-Rubio
criteria, the overall conception of formulating a set of criteria would depend—

so it is claimed—on the form-critical idea of dividing the Jesus accounts of the
Gospels into isolated parts of tradition, which should be then examined indi-
vidually with regard to their authenticity. This procedure, however, blurs the
constructive elements in historiography: it is not the criteria themselves which
form the basis for the meaning of individual pieces of the Jesus tradition, but a
general perception of the broad historical background (political, social, cul-
tural, religious circumstances) against which Jesus’ activity is interpreted.50
The guiding principles for the scholars’ decisions are usually highly subjective,
and do not derive from the criteria, but rather determine how the scholars use
them.51
Even accepting—for the sake of the discussion—that the debunking of the
traditional criteria is well-grounded,52 this would not lead us to an impasse,
since such tools are not the only ones which can be used to critically recon-
struct the historical figure of Jesus. An alternative access has been advanced in
several occasions in the history of Jesus research, and has been recently
restated by Dale Allison. This method does not aim at establishing a residuum
of single items, but consists in the realization of the existence of recurring
See now C. Keith and A. Le Donne (eds.), Jesus, History, and the Demise of Authenticity
(London: T&T Clark, 2012).
50 ‘Eine Rekonstruktion des vorösterlichen Wirkens Jesu ist nur erreichbar, wenn zugleich
mit der Erkenntnis von Einzelheiten ein erster Entwurf für das Gesamtverständnis
skizziert wird. Einzelbeobachtungen und Gesamtbild stehen in einem ständigen
Wechselverhältnis’ (F. Hahn, ‘Methodologische Überlegungen zur Rückfrage nach Jesus’,
in K. Kertelge [ed.], Rückfrage nach Jesus: Zur Methodik und Bedeutung der Frage nach
dem historischen Jesus [Freiburg: Herder, 1974], pp. 11–77, here 37).
51 ‘It may be that the most creative scholars do not carry out research by establishing rules
and then obeying them. When they encounter an item of evidence their total knowledge
of the situation is brought into play, and suddenly this new item falls into place with a
little click in one or another of the available slots. The rules of the game, or criteria, then
serve as rationalizations for what has happened. For the outsider they serve also as a
check on the plausibility of the almost unconscious decision made by the creative
researcher’ (H.K. McArthur, ‘Burden of Proof in Historical Jesus Research’, ExpT 82 (1971),
pp. 116–19, here 119); see also M. Reiser, Die Gerichtspredigt Jesu. Eine Untersuchung zur
eschatologischen Verkündigung Jesu und ihrem frühjüdischen Hintergrund (Münster:
Aschendorff, 1990), p. 190. ‘It is our expectations that largely determine how we use the
criteria’ (D.C. Allison, ‘It Don’t Come Easy: A History of Disillusionment’, in Keith and Le
Donne [eds.], Jesus, History, and the Demise of Authenticity, pp. 186–99, here 197).
52 See, however, the article of T. Hägerland, ‘The Future of Criteria in Historical Jesus
Research’ (jshj, forthcoming), which makes perceptive criticisms of the current attack
against the traditional criteria.

motifs and patterns in the Gospels.53 Unlike the traditional model, which
privileges the parts (the analysis of the Gospel units) over the whole, it sug-
gests privileging the generalizations. It seems that the presence of a conver-
gent pattern in the Gospel tradition cannot be anecdotal or hazardous. Against
these pieces of information, taken as a whole, the objection that they may have
been invented or altered is of no avail, for we find them essentially on the same
level in all the sources. Furthermore, the study of memory (which tends to
record more easily the broad outlines of an event than the details) allows us to
infer that general impressions are more reliable.54
After the arguments made by other scholars on the historicity of such pat-
terns, I do not need to dwell on the point. It suffices to say that the all-pervasive
character of an aspect in the sources makes its historicity more likely.55
Removing such a great amount of material should leave us wholly sceptical
about the mnemonic competence of the tradition. We should accordingly trust
53 F. Loofs, What is the Truth about Jesus Christ? (New York: Scribner’s, 1913); Ch. H. Dodd,
History and the Gospel (New York: Scribner’s, 1938); Allison, Constructing Jesus, pp. 10–30.
‘If a motif has gathered numerous recurrent attestations across the sources, it can be
regarded as having a claim to authenticity. Rationale: A greater dispersion of a motif sug-
gests that the motif has landed in the Jesus tradition very early and through several tra-
dents. It further suggests that already then the motif had been widely accepted and
experienced as central. There are no better options for finding historically accurate remi-
niscences of Jesus’ (T. Holmén, ‘Authenticity Criteria’, in C.A. Evans [ed.], Encyclopedia of
the Historical Jesus [New York: Routledge, 2008], pp. 43–54, here 47).
54 ‘If general impressions are typically more trustworthy than details, then it makes little
sense to reconstruct Jesus by starting with a few of the latter –perhaps some incidents and
sayings that survive the gauntlet of our authenticating criteria—while setting aside the
general impressions that our primary sources instill in us’ (Allison, Constructing Jesus,
p. 14); ‘What counts is not the isolated units but the patterns they weave, the larger images
they form. Indeed, even if one were, against good sense, to doubt the truth of every indi-
vidual story and saying just listed and count them all creations of the community, one
might still reasonably retain a certain faith in the whole of them taken together and sup-
pose that the recurring motif tells us something about Jesus’ ministry’ (Allison, ‘How to
Marginalize’, p. 29); ‘We should proceed not by looking at individual units microscopically
but by gathering what may be called macro samples of material. We might even find that
collectives display features or a Gestalt not discernible in their individual components’
(Allison, ‘How to Marginalize’, p. 30).
55 ‘If a motif crops up time after time, and particularly in sources and strands of tradition
that are to be treated as independent of one another, then it becomes increasingly diffi-
cult to question the reliability of the impression gained from these sources, without hav-
ing to abandon the whole Jesus tradition as contaminated and corrupted’ (A.J.M.
Wedderburn, Jesus and the Historians [Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 2010], p. 169).

18 Bermejo-Rubio
those general impressions: otherwise, the Gospels should be completely

rejected as sources from which we can get some reliable information.56
The conclusions drawn from the recurrence of a motif are not based on the
demonstration of the authenticity of individual pericopes, and are accordingly
independent of such a demonstration.57 It is not necessary to establish the
historicity of each item contained in the above-mentioned cluster in order to
prove its relevance, because what the single passages attributed to Jesus can-
not achieve, that is achieved by their whole. Of course, the more data upon
which the generalization is based, the greater will be our confidence in its his-
toricity. This conclusion holds whatever claims for provenance from Jesus
authenticity one draws up for the various items in the previous catalogue.
It is infinitely easier to account for the above-mentioned if it goes back to
Jesus, than to claim that it is due to a misunderstanding or later additions. In
Loofs’ words, written a century ago for a different pattern: ‘The assumption
that the faith of the later Christians first created all these words…is surely very
difficult even from a historical point of view. For from nothing, nothing
comes’.58 Therefore, paraphrasing Dodd,59 we may surely say, on strictly criti-
cal grounds, that, in the light of the above-mentioned pattern, the evidence
that Jesus was involved in sedition is well-attested, and stands independently
of the historical status of the several stories in detail. If the seditious material
were to be rejected in toto as unhistorical, so should every other Gospel tradi-
tion about him.
3.2 A Truly Embarrassing Cluster

Once the reliability of the overall impression caused by the above-mentioned
cluster is established, we can wonder if other reasoning underpinning its his-
toricity could be added. In the context of the criteria approach, the authentic-
ity of many items in the cluster seemed to be significantly enhanced (not to say
‘established beyond reasonable doubt’) by applying the criterion of embarrass-
ment: Christians would never have gratuitously concocted such material,
which not only does not advance their kerygmatic interests, but directly runs
56 ‘If the chief witnesses fail us in the larger matters, we cannot trust them in the smaller
matters either’ (Allison, Constructing Jesus, p. 17; cf. idem, The Historical Christ, p. 66).
57 ‘What matters is not whether we can establish the authenticity of any of the relevant
traditions or what the criteria of authenticity may say about them, but rather the pattern
that they, in concert, create’ (Allison, The Historical Christ, p. 63); ‘When we read them
[the Gospels], we should think not that Jesus said this or did that but rather: Jesus did
things like this, and he said things like that’ (p. 66).
58 Loofs, What is the Truth about Jesus Christ?, p. 144.
59 Dodd, History and the Gospel, p. 94.

counter to them.60 There seems to be no particular reason why this material

should have been invented, all the less so because it comes from skewed, ten-
dentious sources whose authors are not at all primarily interested in political
issues; rather they seem obviously interested in denying or muffling as much as
possible any involvement of Jesus in seditious activities: they do indeed show
a pro-Roman tendency. For instance, the reliability of the reports about the
crucifixion is virtually accepted by all scholars because no Christian would
have invented such an embarrassing piece of information: in first-century
Judaea, the Romans only crucified seditionists or those reckoned to be sympa-
thetic to them.61 The present methodological discussion, however, has also
involved criticisms of the usefulness of the criterion of embarrassment, so it
will be necessary to tackle this issue here.62 This will be helpful in order to
further clarify the true nature of the available material.
One of the arguments that has been set forth to counter the weight of the
criterion of embarrassment is the fact that the allegedly embarrassing material
has arrived to us embedded in the Gospels themselves, thereby implying that
it was not sufficiently disconcerting to be expurgated: ‘All of these purportedly
embarrassing features of the Jesus tradition already belong to and function as
a part of the tradition itself; their authenticity cannot be bolstered on the basis
that the evangelists, had they been able to, would have expunged them from
their accounts of Jesus’ life and teaching.’63 This objection had already been
advanced forty years ago in a different context, namely, the critical discussion
of Samuel Brandon’s Jesus and the Zealots. In one of the most extensive reviews
60 ‘Often a revealing and significant fact is retained in one of the Gospels… If such an inci-
dent contradicts the prevailing pro-Roman tenor of the narratives one can assume it is
authentic, since such an incident would not have been added at a late stage in the devel-
opment of the Gospels and must be a survival from the earliest versions’ (H. Maccoby,
Revolution in Judaea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance [London: Ocean Books, 1973], p. 136).
61 ‘Vom Beginn der Römerherrschaft 63 v. Chr. bis kurz vor Ausbruch des Jüdischen Krieges
66 n. Chr. sind in Palästina offenbar nur Aufständische bzw. solche, die dafür galten oder
mit Aufständischen sympathisierten, auf diese Weise hingerichtet worden’ (H.-W. Kuhn,
‘Die Kreuzesstrafe während der frühen Kaiserzeit. Ihre Wirklichkeit und Wertung in der
Umwelt des Christentums’, anrw 25.1 [Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1982],
pp. 648–793, here 724).
62 For a more detailed defence of the criterion, see my article ‘Changing Methods, Disturbing
Truths: Should the Criterion of Embarrassment Be Dismissed in Jesus Research?’, forth-
coming (Revue des Études Juives).
63 See especially R. Rodríguez, ‘The Embarrassing Truth about Jesus: The Criterion of
Embarrassment and the Failure of Historical Authenticity’, in Keith and Le Donne (eds.),
Jesus, pp. 132–51, here 147; Allison, Constructing Jesus, p. 427.

20 Bermejo-Rubio
of this classic work, William Klassen wrote: ‘One always wonders why the edi-
tors did not remove entirely any such references if they were embarrassing to
them. Given their historical situation, did they not do a curiously bad job of
concealing Jesus’ relation to the Zealots, if indeed they had any desire to con-
ceal it at all?’64 This was one of the factors leading this scholar to deny that
Jesus was a seditionist.
Although one should not rule out the possibility that some pieces of infor-
mation were not so embarrassing (what may have flustered some may have left
others unperturbed), the problem with this line of argumentation is that it
ignores the fact that there could be other explanations for the presence of this
material in the Jesus tradition, and that those explanations have nothing to do
with lack of embarrassment or the pluralism of sensitivities in the early church.
First, as it has been often stated, an elementary explanation lies in the assump-
tion that this material was of such lineage that, however uncongenial or
bothering, the evangelists did not feel free to omit it.65 There were data too
well known or so deeply embedded in the memory or the tradition that they
could not be easily removed, so the Gospel writers sometimes were willy-nilly
constrained to include them.66 Secondly, precisely because some potentially
devastating material was too well-known, it must have been consciously
included for apologetic purposes,67 in order to neutralize it and thereby coun-
ter anti-Christian polemics.68 Thirdly, such as e.g. Deconstructionism and
64 W. Klassen, ‘Jesus and the Zealot Option’, Canadian Journal of Theology 16 (1970), pp. 12–21,
here 19.
65 This does not imply that the evangelists would not have omitted other things: a mere
comparison of the text of the Synoptics shows that very often the Gospel writers appar-
ently felt little reticence in omitting material. The explanation only implies that the evan-
gelists felt sometimes constrained to include certain material, perhaps just because some
things were too well known.
66 See e.g. Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, p. 254. ‘The Gospel-writers were following the out-
line of an older Gospel. To twist this Gospel to a new meaning required courage of a kind;
sometimes their nerve may have failed them. This would explain why the bones of the old
narrative can sometimes be seen jutting out uncomfortably from the body of the new’
(Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 188).
67 ‘It is reasonable to assume that those who resisted the church’s claims for Jesus sought to
discredit his manner of life, and an effective attack upon him was possible by pointing to
his evil death as a convicted revolutionist’ (E.E. Jensen, ‘The First Century Controversy
over Jesus as a Revolutionary Figure’, jbl 60 [1941], pp. 261–72, here 263).
68 Mutatis mutandis, the fact that present-day Catholic apologists write whole books
devoted to explaining away the close connections of the popes John Paul II and Benedict
XVI with confessed pederasts (like the Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, the founder of the
‘Legion of Christ’) does not imply in the least that this topic is not embarrassing. What it

Psychoanalysis have taught us, the fact that an element is included within a
text (or a discourse) does not mean that it coheres well with that text/
discourse: narrative inclusion does not imply logical integration;69 the pres-
ence of tensions in one and the same discourse can be explained by virtue of a
conflict of interests (or sources?) in its author, or because some aspect is being
repressed. Fourthly, the presence of embarrassing material can be accounted
for by considering that some kinds of narrative are capable of triggering an
effect of reality which overcomes the puzzlement created by inconsistencies;
the Gospels, with their serious atmosphere and their numerous historical ref-
erences (places, times, characters), manage to convey a moving story of a
harmless hero who is hated and rejected by the malevolent Jewish authorities
and presented—as a victim of a conspiracy—to the Romans as a seditionist. In
these circumstances, embarrassing material is virtually neutralized—all the
more so because the writings have the aura of sacred texts—through its inte-
gration within a captivating narrative framework, to the extent that the impres-
sion of strangeness which might trigger a critical analysis is muffled. All this
explains why some material may have been preserved in the Gospels, despite
its embarrassing nature.
It has also been argued that the criterion cannot identify actually embar-
rassing material, because it is possible, in many cases, to surmise its utility for
Christian communities: there may have been a time when Christians would
have had something to gain by inventing those stories.70 Crucifixion has been
offered as the touchstone for this contention: ‘Jesus’ crucifixion is the obvious
case in point… Nothing was so difficult for early Christian theology as the
crucifixion of Israel’s messiah. But nothing was so fruitful for early Christian
theology as the crucifixion of Israel’s messiah.’71 Admittedly, it is a hermeneuti-
cal problem that what we might deem embarrassing today might not seem
implies is that the authors of these works think that it would be worse not to say a word
about that, precisely because they know that their audience is aware of these tricky
connections.
69 We should also recall what Ed Sanders and Margaret Davies wrote when they discussed
the criterion (‘Strongly against the grain’) according to which ‘a passage or a theme is
shown to be historically reliable if it is directly against what the evangelists wished to be
so’: ‘The evangelists did not rewrite their material entirely, so as to make it all harmonious
with their own views… Imposing a completely consistent view on diverse sources is in
fact quite hard’ (Studying the Synoptic Gospels [London: scm, 1989], p. 305).
70 See e.g. Rodríguez, ‘The Embarrassing Truth’, pp. 141–48; it ‘appears propagandistic rather
than embarrassing’ (p. 145).
71 Rodríguez, ‘The Embarrassing Truth’, p. 147.

22 Bermejo-Rubio
embarrassing for the first Christian Jews.72 Nevertheless, the reasoning

concerning the crucifixion is, I am afraid, wrong and misleading: crucifix-
ion as such was not the most difficult datum for early Christians to be
explained away, because it is an isolated piece of information which could
easily be—and has been—construed in many different ways. The single
datum of the cross does not accordingly represent an insurmountable
problem, because—as the most cursory survey of both the New Testament
(already in Paul!) and modern scholarship proves—it admits a plurality of
interpretations. For instance, it could be explained as the result of a tragic
misunderstanding or of the religious hatred of the Jewish rulers, to the
extent that its meaning is ultimately de-politicized.73 Now, in the above-
mentioned cluster we do not find an isolated unit, but a whole converging
and consistent pattern of evidence. This aspect is crucial, since—just as it
happens with crucifixion—one can easily account for a saying or an iso-
lated item in a non-embarrassing way as having served apologetic inter-
ests, but only when it is considered in isolation from the other material.
When the whole pattern is envisaged, however, such an explanation sounds
desperately convoluted and far-fetched.
Of course, one could still retort that the very presence of such a great amount
of passages pointing in the direction of a seditious Jesus is the best proof that
they were not that disconcerting. This objection, however, is misguided, as it mis-
understands the nature of the relevant material. First, the portrayal of a seditious
Jesus does not appear anywhere in a sequential, clear form in the extant texts.
The pieces of information allowing us to recover this dimension of Jesus are
disiecta membra (disjointed items), nothing but scattered fragments. It is the
convergence of the items that allows thoughtful readers to glimpse that
figure, but many of the items have been kept in just one of the New Testament
writings,74 so they are not so abundant when each source is considered in
72 See e.g. J.P. Meier, ‘The Present State of the “Third Quest” for the Historical Jesus: Loss
and Gain’, Biblica 80 (1999), pp. 459–87, here 475; Rodríguez, ‘The Embarrassing Truth’,
pp. 138–46.
73 See, for instance: ‘The death of Jesus is no more a symbol of his relationship to the
Roman imperial order than it is a symbol of his relationship to the Jews. It is a symbol
of his relationship to the world. And that means, to us’ (Bryan, Render to Caesar,
p. 64).
74 This is, of course, no serious objection: ‘Rather than multiple attestation, it will some-
times be single attestation that points to historicity’ (M. Goodacre, ‘Criticizing the
Criterion of Multiple Attestation: The Historical Jesus and the Question of Sources’, in
Keith and Le Donne (eds.), Jesus, pp. 152–69, here 167).

isolation.75 In its present disjointed state, the evidence has accordingly been
deprived of much of its embarrassing effect.
Secondly, these passages are surrounded by much material (biographical
data, ethical and religious teaching, miracles and supernatural events, hal-
akhic controversies…) not characterized at all by revolutionary overtones.
Moreover, the trickiest passages are accompanied by other material (e.g.
Mt. 26.52–54; Jn 18.36;76 Jn 11.51–5277) apparently concocted to defuse any of
their compromising inferences, which makes those passages less disturbing.
In fact, the job done by the evangelists was pretty good, as it is shown by the
history of research: a rebellious Jesus is not the first impression received by
a cursory reading of the texts. It is necessary to make a careful survey and to
carry out a painstaking historical reconstruction to tie up the loose ends
and to discern a seditionist Jesus behind the appearances (which do indeed
present a very different image of him), to the extent that—as far as we
know—the first critical portrayal of Jesus in this light was carried out in the
eighteenth century, and since then only a handful of scholars have endorsed
this view.
Thirdly, we have a further significant hint indicating that this kind of
material was indeed deeply disturbing for early Christians, at least for
those who wrote the Gospels or transmitted the underlying tradition:
much of the potentially disconcerting material has been tampered with in
the editing process. This process has involved not only the dropping or
erasure of relevant material, but also its reinterpretation through its
75 For instance, the swords’ sayings and the charges according to which Jesus forbade the
giving of tribute to Caesar only appear in Luke’s work. That Jesus came to bring ‘not peace,
but sword’, appears only in Matthew. Traces of clandestine activity in Jerusalem only sur-
face in Mark. The political reason for the Jewish initiative to give Jesus over to the Romans
appears only in Jn 11.47–50. The suggestion that relevant similarities existed between
Jesus, Judas and Theudas appears only in Acts.
76 If the sentence means that the kingdom dreamed of by Jesus has nothing to do with
this world because it is merely a ‘spiritual’ reality, we could reasonably doubt that it
was pronounced by the historical Jesus (it is directly refuted by other material), but if
it means that the kingdom is not comparable to those of this world—because it has its
roots in God’s will—it would correspond to Jesus’ thought. Anyway, in the depoliticiz-
ing agenda of the evangelist, the effect of the sentence on the reader is rather
obvious.
77 The contrast between the stark realism in the high-priests’ words in Jn 11.47–50 and the
theological interpretation given to them in Jn 11.51–52 points to the conclusion that
the first part of the pericope preserves some element of a tradition used by the author of
the Fourth Gospel.

24 Bermejo-Rubio
rewording,78 and/or its (re-)location in an altered narrative context, to the

extent that a large number of the passages hinting at a connection between
Jesus and violence or sedition become, in the extant Gospel tradition, at a
certain point abstruse, as if a clear realization of that connection had
been countered or prevented by the tradition or by the evangelists.79 In
other words, these passages do not make real sense as they now stand. The
relevance of this aspect deserves separate attention.
For instance, the depiction of Jesus as going alone into the Temple and driv-
ing out those who sold and bought contains several manifest improbabilities,
as many scholars have stated, not the least being its denouement. How was it
possible for a single person to carry out what the evangelists attribute to Jesus?
How did those people disturbed by Jesus react? Was no opposition offered to
this arbitrary interruption of a brisk trade? What did the Temple guards (and
eventually the Romans) do? Not a single word is said about this.
Something similar happens with the brief account of the crucial episode
of Jesus’ arrest. What was Jesus doing in the Mount of Olives at night with
an entourage of armed men? Why was a heavily armed party sent to seize
Jesus secretly? Why is Mk 14.47 (see also Mt. 26.51) silent over the identity
of the attacker taking a sword? Did the attacked person not defend him-
self? Did the arresting party not react to this bloodletting attack, presum-
ably carried out with homicidal intentions? Why is Jesus, who is portrayed
as claiming a pacific attitude, arrested, whilst people using a sword are left
unmolested?80 For all these questions there is no answer. The whole scene
is, in its too schematic construction, meaningless, and, as such, hardly
credible.
78 For instance, Lk. 9.23 seeks to defuse the dangerous implications of Jesus encouraging his
followers to take up the cross (Mark) by inserting the phrase καθ΄ ἡμέραν (‘daily’), trying to
convey the idea that ‘cross’ was to be taken metaphorically. Jn 11.51–52 seems to rephrase
the original account of Jn 11.47–50, by substituting profound theology for the high-priest’s
sober realism.
79 ‘Tatsächlich sind sie, wenn auch nicht einhellig gestrichen, so doch im Lauf der Zeit so
weit als möglich abgetönt worden’ (Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, p. 254); ‘When we take a
closer look at the Gospel accounts…, we find that the facts are not so much suppressed as
disguised’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 166).
80 Kautsky perceptively remarked how pointless is this story: ‘Gerade er wird verhaftet, der
den friedlichen Weg predigt, dagegen behelligt man nicht im mindesten die Apostel, die
ihre Schwerter zogen und dreinhieben… Ein ganz unbegreiflicher und sinnloser Vorgang’
(Kautsky, Ursprung, p. 389).

Another passage which seems to have been truncated or obscured is Lk.

22.36–38. Jesus himself encourages his followers to arm themselves with
swords; then the disciples present two swords, and Jesus answers: ‘It is
enough’. Why does Jesus order his disciples not having a sword to buy one
if immediately after only two swords seem to suffice? Even if one admits
that Jesus could give such an awkward answer—and this is exceedingly
implausible, both in itself and in the light of Lk. 22.49–, what were those
two swords necessary for?81 Why has this passage such a dark ending?
What is the link between this episode and the violent incident at
Gethsemane?82 Again, too many unanswered questions remain. Again, the
scene is depicted in an unbelievable way, because it can hardly correspond
to any real event.
These examples could be easily multiplied.83 Now, the truncated nature of
the evidence is not only a feature of single passages, but of whole issues. An
interesting example is directly related to Jesus’ claim to kingship. Nowhere in
the Gospels is Jesus presented as clearly claiming himself to be a king, nor dis-
cussing the issues related to such a claim.84 The nearest to that is the ambiva-
lent answer to Pilate: ‘You have said so’ (Mk 15.2). However, we can be virtually
sure, through a painstaking reconstruction of all the disjointed items available
in the sources, that Jesus did indeed make kingly (rebellious) claims.85 Despite
81 On the swords, see infra, nn. 303–308.

82 On this aspect, see infra, n. 132.
83 For instance, according to Mk 11.1–6 and 14.12–16, Jesus orders his disciples to carry out
some actions in Jerusalem, which presuppose contacts with supporters within the city
and the use of a password, but not a word is said about when and how these contacts were
made, or when and how the passwords were created.
84 ‘Nowhere in the Gospels do we find the events or activities which such a question would
lead us to expect: the proclamation of Jesus’s accession to the throne, the anointing of
Jesus as King, the appointment of officials of his court, the planning by Jesus of his royal
regime’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 165). This has prompted many scholars to claim
that pretending to be king of the Jews was not Jesus’ crime (see e.g. D.R. Catchpole, ‘The
“Triumphal” Entry’, in Bammel and Moule (eds.), Jesus and the Politics of his Day, pp. 319–
34, esp. 328–30).
85 The convergent evidence is overwhelming: the titulus crucis; the messianic entry in
Jerusalem, full of royal signs (see B. Kinman, ‘Jesus’ Royal Entry into Jerusalem’, in
D.L. Bock and R.L. Webb [eds.], Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus [Tübingen:
Mohr–Siebeck, 2009], pp. 383–427, esp. 405–411); the charge specified by Lk. 23.2; Jesus’
reference to ‘my kingdom’ (Lk. 22.29–30); the emphatic appearance of the title ‘king’ in
Pilate’s interrogation and in the following narrative (Mk 15); the mocking of Jesus by the

26 Bermejo-Rubio
all this, and despite the key importance of this matter, the Gospels are muddy
and confusing about it.86
The true significance of many episodes has been obscured or disguised in the
Gospel accounts, either by the evangelists or by the traditions on which they rely.
A lot of evidence has been actually tampered with, not only in the sense that the
relevant pieces of information are now scattered and unconnected, but also
because quite a few passages have been handled in such a way that their original
meaning has been distorted, thereby confirming the often unreliable nature of
the Gospels. This distorting process explains the cryptic nature of much evi-
dence. The sobering lesson is that the same kind of logic is, time and again, at
work. In fact, the above-mentioned passages have several features in common:
(a) They refer to actions or sayings implying an involvement of Jesus (or his
entourage) in violence or seditious activities; (b) They depict crucial events
about Jesus’ fate, taking place during Jesus’ last days in Jerusalem; (c) They hardly
make sense in its present state, so its truncated character betrays editorial manip-
ulation. The material has been retouched in order to conceal its dangerous
nature, but their opacity usually presents a consistent form.87
The former analyses indicate that the puzzling, awkward nature of much
crucial material in the Gospels is not due to mere ‘memory failures’. Of course,
earliest Christian memory could fail, and sometimes it probably did. It would
be exceedingly odd, however, that it had failed to record the most momentous
events and data in Jesus’ story, precisely when his fate was being decided.
At the same time this indicates that much material which the evangelists had
at their disposal was indeed embarrassing,88 to the extent that several devices
soldiers; the request of James and John to Jesus (Mk 10.35–40), presupposing that Jesus
will be enthroned as the king of the new age; Jn 19.12 and Acts 17.7, which also hint at the
seditious nature of the claim; and so on. The conclusion that Jesus made kingly claims is
hardly inescapable.
86 According to John, Jesus rejected being made king (Jn 6.15), and he eventually disclaimed
any intention of being an earthly king by telling Pilate ‘My kingdom is not of this world’
(Jn 18.36). ‘These difficulties arise because the Gospel-writers, while they could not deny
Jesus’s royal claim, found it extremely embarrassing since they knew it constituted rebel-
lion against Rome. They therefore disguised it in every way they could: by pretending that
it was metaphorical only, by suppressing details connected with it, and by representing it
as an invention of his enemies designed to get him into trouble with the Romans’
(Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 166).
87 ‘Nor is this merely the incoherence of an imperfectly remembered event; the incoherence
is the result of dynamic factors—it is tendentiously incoherent’ (J. Carmichael, The Death
of Jesus [New York: Barnes & Noble, 1982], p. 41).
88 ‘The contradictions, absurdities, reticence and elusiveness manifest in these accounts are
all found to stem from the embarrassing fact of the Roman execution of Jesus for sedition’
(S.G.F. Brandon, The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth [London: Batsford, 1968], p. 139).

had to be contrived in order to work it out as best they could.89 The altera-
tion of these passages bears the character of a verification of their asserted
offensiveness to the Christian feeling of the day. Undoubtedly, the criterion
of embarrassment keeps its value; its application makes us think that
not only the overall impression caused by the pattern, but also most of the
individual items, are very likely reliable, and go back to the historical figure
of Jesus.
3.3 Contextual Plausibility

We can further add a criterion of historical plausibility: any portrait of Jesus
has to be designed as part of first-century Judaism in its Galilean setting. The
material we have surveyed does indeed fit into the Jewish context in which the
Jew Jesus of Nazareth lived. If ‘the better a tradition fits into the concrete
Jewish context of Palestine and Galilee, the more claim it has to authentic-
ity’,90 then it is significant that the material we have surveyed corresponds to
the very concrete socio-political situation that actually existed in Jesus’ life-
time, that of a Palestine under Roman control.91
The intimate relationship between religion and politics which is visible in
Jesus’ thinking is not only typical of Judaism altogether, but specifically of the
anti-Roman resistance groups, whose members were often inspired by genu-
ine piety and devotion to traditional Jewish religion, just like their prototypes
the early Maccabees.92 Jesus shares both with Judas the Galilean and the rebels
of the Jewish War a radical theocratic seriousness, which admits God alone as
humanity’s true and righteous Lord.93 They all looked for divine aid to restore
the kingdom to Israel.
The uncompromising piety that led Jesus to the conflicts with Roman rule
is unmistakably witnessed by a portion of the material contained in the
pattern; this is the same kind of attitude to the Empire taken by other reli-
giously motivated fighters. The prospect of suffering and even eager readiness
89 I do not mean that there was a conscious deceit in this procedure. Surely the evangelists
(and the transmitters of the tradition) behaved in all good faith—just as so many modern
scholars—, believing that Jesus could not be a seditionist.
90 See G. Theissen and D. Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria
(Louisville, ky and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), p. 180.
91 This was already remarked by Kautsky, Ursprung, p. 390.
92 M. Hengel, Die Zeloten. Untersuchungen zur jüdischen Freiheitsbewegung in der Zeit von
Herodes I. bis 70 n. Chr. (Leiden: Brill, 1976; orig. edn 1961); Farmer, Maccabees.
93 Eleazar b. Ari, the commander of Masada, believed that his people should ‘be subject
neither to the Romans nor to any other person, but only to God, for only he is the true and
lawful lord of men’ (B.J. VII 323).

28 Bermejo-Rubio
to lose one’s life for God’s sake is the same.94 Not for nothing has the saying
‘carrying one’s own cross’ been seen as having its origin in anti-Roman resistance
movements.95
Along with his longing for Israel’s gathering and liberation, Jesus’ conflicts
and criticism of the chief priests are also understandable in the light of the
ideology of resistance movements. Their members despised (for religious and
political reasons) the pro-Roman priestly aristocracy of the Temple, who were
perceived as quislings by the nationalistic patriots longing for freedom and as
the indigenous supporters of the invading power. The same can be said of the
strong animus towards the Herodian dynasts, perceptible both in Jesus’ story
and the Jewish nationalistic movements.96
Jesus’ harsh criticism of wealth, as at least partially associated to social
injustice and oppression, has likewise a parallel in the outlook of the members
of uprisings, who—in a prophetic tradition—were hostile alike to the rich and
powerful. The rebellious movements usually had a social aspect, as is percep-
tible, for instance, in the burning of the public archives in Jerusalem during the
disturbances that marked the beginning of the revolt in Jerusalem in 66 ce.
They were ‘eager to destroy the money-lenders’ bonds and to prevent the
recovery of debts’.97
If Jesus—as the converging material of Lk. 23.2 and Mark 12 indicates—
opposed the payment of the tribute, he is most naturally a link within the
chain that goes from Judas the Galilean, through to his sons, to the rebels of the
First Jewish War. For all of them, the tribute to Caesar was intolerable, for it
meant giving of the resources of God’s Holy Land to the upkeep of a heathen
rule. Significantly, as we have already remarked, Lk. 2.2 defines the time of
Jesus’ birth by the census of Quirinius, an event that according to Josephus
heralded the birth of the anti-Roman resistance movement and the refusal to
pay the tribute (ensuing to the census).98
With his kingly claims Jesus does not stand as an isolated figure in his own
time. According to Josephus, the revolts that erupted in Galilee, Perea and
Judaea at the death of Herod were messianic movements in which the rebels
94 On this aspect, see Farmer, Maccabees, pp. 65–68; Hengel, Die Zeloten, pp. 261–77.
95 ‘Liegt doch die Vermutung nahe, daß Jesus hier eine zelotische Formel aus dem allge-
meinen Sprachgebrauch übernommen hat’ (Hengel, Die Zeloten, p. 266); see also Brandon,
Jesus and the Zealots, pp. 57, 145, 269; idem, Trial, p. 147.
96 Let us recall, for instance, that in the Jewish War the rebels burnt the palaces of Agrippa
and his sister Berenice, along with the house of Ananias, the high priest.
97 B.J. II 427.
98 See Hengel, Die Zeloten, pp. 132–45.

acclaimed one of their number as king.99 Moreover, that kingly claim was later
made in the Jewish War by some leaders. Josephus states that Menahem—
described by him as ‘son’ of Judas—returned to Jerusalem like a veritable king
(οἶα δὴ βασιλεύς), along with his retinue, and later he is portrayed as praying in
the Temple wearing royal vestments.100
In the kind of death suffered, Jesus shared his fate with thousands of Jewish
rebels. After the outbreaks of revolt throughout Judea following the death of
Herod, the Roman legate of Syria, Varus, commanded about two thousand to
be crucified. About 46 ce, the sons of Judas, James and Simon, were crucified
by the procurator Tiberius Alexander, to say nothing of the great number of
people crucified during the Jewish War. In fact, just like all these executions,
that of the Golgotha is depicted by the Gospels as a collective crucifixion, in
which at least three men were executed.101
Jesus is understandable as a seditionist not only in the light of a long-
standing tradition in Israel of resistance to foreign or domestic oppressive rul-
ers but also, more specifically, in his narrower Galilean context, in which he
was born and brought up. When he was a child, Roman legions had burned the
villages around such towns as Magdala and Sepphoris and slaughtered or
enslaved thousands of people; the memory of these massacres must have been
long recalled in Galilee. Moreover, Jesus must have been in his early teens
when the armed rebellion erupted under the leadership of Judas and Zaddok
the Pharisee, who fomented a religiously-based uprising against Roman rule
among their countrymen.102 And during the lifetime of Jesus and those
who joined his movement, the rule of Antipas must have been not only eco-
nomically grievous—given the construction of two whole cities—but also a
constant reminder of Roman imperial rule.103 Of course, these Galilean cir-
cumstances do not prove by themselves in the least that Jesus reacted to them
99 B.J. II 56–65; A.J. XVII 271–284 (Judas, Simon, Athronges); A.J. XVII 285.
100 B.J. II 434.444. Simon bar Giora surrendered to the Romans dressed in a white tunic and a
purple mantle (B.J. VII 29).
101 Only rarely scholars leave open the possibility that there were more people crucified in
the group. See S. Légasse, Le procès de Jésus. L’histoire (Paris: Cerf, 1994), p. 144; E. Bammel,
‘The Trial before Pilate’, in Bammel and Moule (eds.), Jesus and the Politics of his Day,
pp. 415–51, esp. 443.
102 See e.g. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, pp. 29, 65, 343–44; idem, Trial, pp. 30–31.
103 Let us note that Antipas must have been clearly perceived as a client ruler, not only
because he was brought up in Rome and owed his position to the beneficence of the
Roman overlord, but also because he built walls around the Roman-styled Sepphoris and
Beth Ramtha and renamed them in honour of the Imperial House (Autokratōr, Livias/
Iulias respectively), and built Tiberias in honour of Tiberius.

30 Bermejo-Rubio
by taking the side of the revolutionaries, because resistance could adopt a wide
range of possibilities, including non-violent resistance.104 It is rather the abun-
dant seditious evidence in the Gospels that make Jesus’ provenance from
Galilee significant.105
All these convergent elements allow us to realize the indefensible character
of one of the most widespread objections to the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus,
according to which Jesus could not be a seditionist since in his age there was
complete peace in Judaea.106 This is, however, hardly credible. It is admittedly
true that, according to Tacitus, sub Tiberio quies (‘Under Tiberius all was quiet’),
but it is striking—and a gross oversimplification—that this global statement is
so often used to refuse a priori the presence of any subversive action in a period
lasting several decades. Although the intensity and the extent of the spirit of
revolt during the time of Jesus can be sometimes exaggerated,107 it is also pos-
sible to minimize it, and there is every indication that such a minimization is
an uncritical procedure.
On the one hand, the usual reading of Tacitus’s famous sentence is, in all
probability, mistaken and naïve. First, when read in context, the sentence does
not denote a particularly peaceful stance on the part of the Jews: ‘Under
Tiberius [all] was quiet; when then ordered by Gaius Caesar to set up a statue
of him in the Temple they rather resorted to arms (arma potius sumpsere)—to
which uprising the death of the emperor put an end’. Secondly, Tacitus seems
to mean merely that under Tiberius there were no revolts necessitating inter-
vention from the Syrian legate.108 Thirdly, we should realize the rhetorical
104 See W. Wink, ‘Jesus and Revolution: Reflections on S.G.F. Brandon’s Jesus and the Zealots’,
Union Seminary Quarterly Review 25 (1969), pp. 37–59, here 54.
105 This is why Wink’s blaming Brandon in this respect (‘Jesus and Revolution’, p. 53) is quite
unfair.
106 See P.W. Barnett, ‘Under Tiberius All was Quiet’, nts 21 (1975), pp. 564–71; J. Giblet, ‘Un
mouvement de résistance armée au temps de Jésus?’, Revue Théologique de Louvain
5 (1974), pp. 409–429; H. Guevara, Ambiente político del pueblo judío en tiempos de Jesús
(Madrid: Cristiandad, 1985).
107 Some scholars maintain the view of a Palestine filled with persistent political unrest and
protests, movements, and outright revolts against the imperial Roman order; see e.g.
E. Rivkin, What Crucified Jesus? (London: scm, 1986), p. 34; R.A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire:
The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), pp. 13, 35,
53–54; Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, pp. 125, 147.
108 Tacitus ‘is concerned only with rebellions that necessitated direct intervention by the
Roman legate in Syria backed by the three or later four legions of the army of the
Euphrates… “Quiet” means that the Palestinian governors could handle any problems,
including those they themselves had created, and such affairs were therefore of no

dimension of Tacitus’s statement; in fact, it has been recently argued that ‘sub
Tiberio quies’ is just a generalization which may have had the function of using
Tiberius as a foil for Gaius Caligula.109 In the light of these remarks, Tacitus’s
statement can and should be understood only in a relative way: in comparison
with armed insurrection in various regions, including Galilee, in the age of
Sabinus and Varus, and the general uprising leading to war in 66 ce (and even
the risings of Theudas and the Egyptian in the 40s), Tiberius’ age seems to have
been relatively peaceful, but the qualification ‘relatively’ (or ‘comparatively’) is
necessary.110
As to Josephus, the scarce information he provides is not conclusive: it may
merely mean either that his sources did not supply him with definite informa-
tion or that he did not think it essential to record all the riots and petty rebel-
lions that broke out from time to time. The fact that Josephus fails to give any
clear and concrete evidence of the activity of liberation movements between
the time of Judas’ attempted revolt in 6 ce (Archelaus’ banishment) and the
reign of Agrippa I (41–44 ce) does not mean that they did not exist.111 In fact,
he implies the existence of a connection between Judas of Galilee’s activities
and claims, and the Jewish War;112 but whatever Josephus’s ‘Fourth Philosophy’
interest to Roman history or to Tacitus. That is not exactly the same as saying that under
Tiberius all was peaceful or that there was no social unrest in Palestine in the years
between 14 and 37 c.e.’: J.D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean
Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), pp. 101–102.
109 See D.R. Schwartz, Reading the First Century: On Reading Josephus and Studying Jewish
History of the First Century (Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 2013), pp. 134–36.
110 In W.G. Kümmel’s review of Brandon’s Jesus and the Zealots, this scholar wrote: ‘in diesen
Jahrzehnten, von vereinzelten Zwischenfällen abgesehen, die Lage in Palästina weitgehend
ruhig gewesen zu sein scheint’ (Theologische Rundschau 41 [1976], pp. 230–33, here 233,
my italics). Nowhere does Kümmel wonder whether Jesus could be one of these ‘isolated
cases’. See also: ‘The impression one gets from a reading of Josephus is rather that there
was a comparative lull in revolutionary activity during the years a.d. 6–44’ (H.A. Fast,
Jesus and Human Conflict [Scottdale, pa: Herald Press, 1959], p. 54, my italics). ‘Das tacit-
eische “sub Tiberio quies” wird den Kleinkrieg in der Wüste kaum miteinbezogen haben’
(Hengel, Die Zeloten, p. 344).
111 According to Josephus (B.J. II 118; A.J. XVIII 4), Judas ‘caused the people to revolt (εἰς
ἀπόστασιν)’, and was the founder of a sect (σοφιστὴς ἰδίας αἱρέσεως). Presumably, this sect
and its ideas did survive, since the circumstances which gave rise to them remained;
moreover, the ideas of Judas and Saddok were enthusiastically received by the people:
‘When they heard their appeals, responded gladly (καὶ ἡδονῇ γὰρ τὴν ἀκρόασιν ὧν λέγοιεν
ἐδέχοντο οἱ ἄνθρωποι)’, and ‘made serious progress’ (A.J. XVIII 6).
112 At the beginning of the 18th book of his Antiquities, the Jewish historian uses the meta-
phor of sowing and ‘planting the roots’ (ῥίζας ἐφυτεύσαντο) in order to establish the

32 Bermejo-Rubio
called itself, this ideological trend survived and continued its opposition to the
Romans.113
Furthermore, there is no evidence that it organized all the resistance to the
Romans.114 More importantly, the statement ‘all was quiet’ contradicts Flavius
Josephus’s narrative head-on. When portraying the Judean governorship of
Pontius Pilate, the Jewish historian depicts it as a series of intense clashes
relationship between this ‘Fourth Philosophy’ and the ominous events which later took
place for the Jewish people, including the destruction of the Temple (A.J. XVIII 8–10).
Even if Josephus did not apply the term ‘Zealots’ to the opponents of the Romans before
the revolt, when he came to the events of the revolt itself he made a descendant of Judas
of Galilee, Menahem, the leader of the Zealots; in Massada, the leadership was held by
Eleazar ben Jair, another descendant of Judas. Moreover, the two sons of Judas, Jacob and
Simon, were crucified by Tiberius Julius Alexander ca. 46 ce (A.J. XX 102), so presumably
the resistance went on in Jesus’ age.
113 It has been argued that both Judas and the Fourth Philosophy were not historical reali-
ties, but merely inventions of Josephus; see J.S. McLaren, ‘Constructing Judean History
in the Diaspora: Josephus’s Accounts of Judas’s, in J. Barclay (ed.), Negotiating Diaspora:
Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004),
pp. 90–108. Alongside many other scholars I remain, however, unconvinced by this con-
tention. It has also been claimed that the ‘Fourth Philosophy’ did not advocate a violent
revolt, but just passive resistance; see R.A. Horsley and J.S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets
and Messiahs. Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus (2nd edn; Harrisburg, pa: Trinity
Press, 1999), pp. 190–99; R.A. Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish
Resistance in Roman Palestine (2nd edn; Minneapolis, mn: Fortress, 1993), pp. 77–89.
Although this scholar has some valid points, the core of his claim is unsound. For
the sake of brevity I can tackle here this issue only in a summary way. First, some of
Horsley’s translations of Josephus’s passages—for instance, of ἀπόστασις as ‘(passive)
resistance’—are hardly convincing, or do not justify his conclusions. Secondly, whilst
this scholar rightly questions the identification of the Fourth Philosophy with the
Zealots, he arbitrarily overlooks or downplays the elements of agreement and (both
genealogical and ideological) continuity between the Fourth Philosophy and the later
anti-Roman armed resistance. Thirdly, his assessment of Judas’s stance as ‘nonviolent
noncooperation’ relies on a simplistic ‘either/or’ approach: either the ‘Fourth Philosophy’
advocated armed rebellion, or it renounced the use of weapons. Violence and nonvio-
lence, however, are not mutually exclusive phenomena in a context of anti-imperial
resistance; in fact, the seriousness itself of Judas’s call—which implied risking one’s
life—must have triggered different theoretical positions and practical options within
the movement, according to different sensitivities. See the careful essay of R. Deines,
‘Gab es eine jüdische Freiheitsbewegung? Martin Hengels “Zeloten” nach 50 Jahren’, in
M. Hengel, Die Zeloten (3rd rev. edn; ed. R. Deines and C.-J. Thornton; Tübingen: Mohr–
Siebeck, 2011), pp. 403–448.
114 See e.g. Smith, ‘Zealots and Sicarii’, p. 18.

between the prefect and the Jews.115 As remarked by Eduard Norden a century
ago, virtually each one of the episodes of the narrative is depicted through the
term θόρυβος (tumult).116 One of them ends in a massacre, and another one
nearly does. Moreover, the last incident of the account deals with a violent
conflict between Pilate and his (armed) Samaritan subjects at Mount Gerizim.
The importance of these incidents as demonstrating a deep sense of unease
should not be understated.117
More decisively, the Gospels themselves give the lie to that allegedly
idyllic picture. Leaving aside all the abundant seditious material concerning
Jesus, they make mention of Galileans ‘whose blood Pilate had mingled
with their sacrifices’,118 refer to an insurrection (στάσις) in Jerusalem about
the time of Jesus’ arrival (Mk 15.7; Lk. 23.19) involving bloodshed, and
115 A.J. XVIII 55–89. Josephus calls the aqueduct episode a στάσις (A.J. XVIII 62), and accord-
ing to Philo’s report, the protestors in the shield incident warned Pilate not to arouse
sedition (Legatio ad Caium 301).
116 E. Norden, ‘Josephus und Tacitus über Jesus Christus und seine messianische Prophetie’,
Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum 31 (1913), pp. 637–66. The text is reprinted in
A. Schalit (ed.), Zur Josephus-Forschung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1973), pp. 27–69.
117 As Jonathan Price put it, ‘Pilate’s stormy term (26–37 [?] c.e.) belies Tacitus’s famous
judgment that “under Tiberius all was quiet” (Hist. 5.9.2); the problem was a lack of infor-
mation even in Tacitus’s day, although five serious disturbances under Pilate alone are
recorded in sources Tacitus did not consult. Pilate’s immediate predecessor, Valerius
Gratus, deposed four high priests, indicating perhaps a lack of calm already before Pilate’s
arrival’ (J.J. Price, Jerusalem under Siege: The Collapse of the Jewish State, 66–70 c.e [Leiden:
Brill, 1992], p. 6). Let us also remark that Josephus attributes the arrest and execution of
John the Baptist to Herod Antipas’s fear of an uprising; political terminology is embedded
in the reference to John: στάσις, μεταβολή and the phrase τί νεώτερον, a euphemism used
to designate a rebellion (A.J. XVIII 118–119).
118 Lk. 13.1–3. Pilate’s action could repress an insurrectionary movement: ‘Es könnte
freilich vielleicht auch irgendein früherer Zeloten-Aufstand gemeint sein’ (R. Bultmann,
Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition [8th edn; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1970], p. 57); ‘The Galilaeans who were slain by Pilate must clearly have been
involved in some situation which called for repressive action by the procurator’
(Brandon, Fall of Jerusalem, p. 106). In Lk. 13.4 there is also a reference to ‘those eigh-
teen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell’. Robert Eisler associated the falling of the
tower of Siloam with the massacre of the Galilaeans, by arguing that the fall of
the tower was not a natural calamity but a military operation. Other scholars have
found this conjecture plausible (see H.G. Wood, ‘Interpreting this Time’, nts 4 [1956],
pp. 262–66, esp. 263).

34 Bermejo-Rubio
portray the other crucified men along with Jesus as λῃσταί (insurrection-
ists). Moreover, the Fourth Gospel also describes Barabbas as a λῃστής
(Jn 18.40).119
In these circumstances, the claim that Jesus’ age was rather calm is mani-
festly unfounded. Although it is not possible to give any clear picture of the
revolutionary movement in Jesus’ day, either as regards its organization or its
energy, in the light of the converging hints pointing to the existence of latent
and actual disturbances, the attempt to deny credibility to our hypothesis
because of that reason verges on the pointless. Far from being a foreign body
within his time and environment, the seditious Jesus who is glimpsed in the
sources makes perfect sense within them.
3.4 Concluding Remarks on the Historicity and the Nature of the Pattern
The combination of a convergent pattern, along with the applicability of the
criteria of embarrassment and historical plausibility, allows us to infer that the
pattern has the highest probability of historicity. In fact, it is doubtful if there
is much material in the Gospels that can be compared to this in its probability
of going back to the Galilean preacher.
It is revealing that the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus has faced two mutually
excluding objections regarding the nature of the evidence at our disposal. As
I have argued, the objection has been levelled that, had the evidence been
really embarrassing, it would have been dropped; according to this objection,
we would have too much evidence. On the other hand, however, it is often
claimed that, had Jesus been an anti-Roman seditionist, we would have (more)
explicit evidence supporting the hypothesis.120 The former survey allows us to
119 Although in order to reject the label, Mk 14.48 and par. (Mt. 26.55; Lk. 22.52) makes Jesus
say: ‘As against a rebel (ὡς ἐπὶ λῃστὴν), you have come out with swords and sticks to lay
hold of me’. It is striking that this sentence is usually deemed to be proof of the lack of
Jesus’ anti-Roman activities, as it should be obvious that such a sentence (even if the pas-
sage is reliable) says absolutely nothing regarding Jesus’ real identity. λῃστής was an
opprobrious, insulting label, a term which would not have been used as a self-designation
by rebellious Jews, due to its negative connotations (Jewish patriots did not call them-
selves ‘bandits’, but ‘justice-seekers’ and ‘servants of God’). ‘Banditry was often defined by
the winning side of a power struggle. For example, Iulius Caesar and Octavian had both
been called bandits at one time, even though (as Augustus) Octavian became the paradig-
matic “anti-bandit”’ (S. Mason [ed.], Life of Josephus [Leiden: Brill, 2001], p. 32).
120 ‘It is not simply the fear of the consequences, but a poverty of evidence that prevents our
defining the politics of Jesus’ (Wink, ‘Jesus and Revolution’, p. 59). ‘No such revolutionary
ethos comes clearly into focus in the ministry of Jesus, despite occasional pockets here
and there’ (Freyne, Galilee, p. 229). In order to deny that Jesus was involved in

understand that such a claim is wholly unwarranted. This last objection not
only overlooks the recurrent pattern I have pointed to, but also misunder-
stands the nature of evidence and the hypothetical character of any recon-
struction.121 If the Gospels had explicitly and consistently presented Jesus’
group as a dangerous gang of seditionists, the hypothesis itself would be utterly
superfluous, and scholars advancing it since the eighteenth century could have
spared their efforts. Furthermore, the objection does not take into account
that in heavily dominated peoples an art of political disguise takes place (what
James Scott has called ‘hidden transcripts’122), and that this model can and
should be applied to Jesus.123
Accordingly, the claim that the lack of more clear evidence regarding the
Roman rule in the remembered teachings of Jesus means that he was not inter-
ested in political issues or that he embraced a rather otherworldly view wholly
misses the point. Likewise, the lack of an open ‘call to arms’ in the Gospels (but
Lk. 22.36 resembles such a call!) proves accordingly nothing, precisely
because—given the obscuring editing-process and the fact that forms of resis-
tance are very often expressed covertly and in an indirect way—its absence is
to be expected. The significant thing is not that we do not have more material
pointing to a seditious Jesus, but rather that we have got so much.
While the explanation of various elements from Jesus’ life as well as his
death which is privileged in the Gospels does not deserve credit in several
revolutionary aims, another scholar states: ‘The temple incident is the only real evidence
pointing in that direction… Hardly anything else in Jesus’ statements or actions in any of
the Gospels supports such a view’ (K.R. Snodgrass, ‘The Temple Incident’, in Bock and
Webb (eds.), Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus, pp. 429–80, here 464); among
many others.
121 ‘My interpretation is indeed hypothetical; but so must be every attempt to reconstruct
from the relevant data an intelligible account of how Christianity began. And that, I must
insist, goes also, in a very true sense, for the accounts given in the Gospels themselves and
in the Acts of the Apostles. For, as I have just endeavoured to show, the earliest account of
the Passion, namely, that in the Markan Gospel, is essentially an apologetical reconstruc-
tion of the events leading to the crucifixion of Jesus, and it is evidently based upon a
selection of traditional information about the event’ (Brandon, ‘Aftermath’, p. 56).
122 See J.C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, ct:
Yale University Press, 1990). ‘Recent studies of modern peasantries have discerned that
active protests and movements form only the historically visible small fraction of the far
wider and deeper popular resistance that remains purposely hidden’ (Horsley, Jesus and
Empire, p. 53).
123 See R. Horsley (ed.), Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance: Applying the Work of
James C. Scott to Jesus and Paul (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

36 Bermejo-Rubio
respects, the underlying story can be reconstructed and told otherwise by set-
ting forth a convincing hypothesis.124 In the Gospel accounts, distorted though
they are, there are surviving scraps and snippets of historical likelihood which
can be assembled and be used as helpful building blocks in order to under-
stand Jesus and outline an alternative explanation of the events. This hypo-
thetical work must now be tackled.
4 Interpreting the Pattern
The pattern we have surveyed is constituted by a set of data which is, on

the one hand, very clear, but that, on the other hand, is open to interpreta-
tion: as we have said, it is a set of disjointed items, not the depiction of a
clear and sequential course of events. In fact, in the long history of research
several different images of a seditious Jesus have been presented. The pres-
ent section is devoted to a close reading of the evidence, in order to deter-
mine which is its most probable meaning and implications; put otherwise,
we must weigh up the different interpretative solutions, with the aim of
deciding which of them is historically the most plausible. Given that the
available sources have distorted and embroiled the data to such an extent,
it is impossible to ascertain with total certainty what really happened,
but we can carry out a quite plausible hypothetical reconstruction of
the events.
4.1 Explicit Meanings and Implications

4.1.1 Jesus’ targets: the Jewish rulers… and the Roman rule
The cluster we have identified does not indicate in a general and vague way
that Jesus’ words had political implications; it strongly suggests that he was
somehow actually involved in rebellious activities. Moreover, unlike what
many scholars have claimed,125 it indicates that the target of Jesus’ activity was
124 ‘If we fix our attention on the facts of Jesus’s life and death (as opposed to the interpreta-
tions of the facts added by the Gospels) we shall see that Jesus was a Jewish Resistance
leader of a type not unique in this period’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 124).
125 See e.g. Hengel, Die Zeloten, p. 346, n. 3 (Jesus’ attack was addressed ‘nicht gegen die
römische Oberherrschaft sondern gegen die religiös und politisch herrschende Schicht
im Judentum selbst’); ‘Direct criticism of Roman rule, if any, is nowhere recorded in our
Gospels’ (Fast, Jesus and Human Conflict, p. 91); ‘If Independence from Rome were Jesus’
agenda, it is strange overall that there is not a single saying attributed to him in any gospel
that unambiguously states that agenda’ (Bryan, Render to Caesar, p. 46); ‘When we turn to

not merely the religious and political ruling class in Judaism, but also the
Roman rule and its overthrow.126 Admittedly, according to Mark, Jesus’ primary
conflict was with the high-priestly rulers in Jerusalem, and it is highly probable
that Jesus included the Jerusalem elite among the ‘unrighteous rulers’ whom
God will judge. Nonetheless, an important part of the evidence (the crucifix-
ion, the mocking by the soldiers, the issue of the tribute with the reference to
Caesar (and, in Lk. 20.20, to the governor), the titulus crucis, the comparison of
Jesus’ movement with that of Theudas and the Egyptian in Acts, and so on127)
unmistakably points to a conflict with the Romans.
This clash between Jesus and the Roman rule is further perceptible in two
items of the above-mentioned cluster, namely, the logion about ‘taking up the
cross’ 128 and Jn 11.47–50 (a pericope that purports recording the gist of a high-
priest’s speech, and that contains the only mention of ‘the Romans’ in the
Gospels).129 Both in a saying ascribed to Jesus himself and in words attributed
to one of his alleged adversaries, the same message seems to be conveyed: the
existence of a straightforward connection between choosing Jesus’ way (or let-
ting this way advance) and a violent Roman intervention. Interestingly, in both
the few secure pieces of evidence we can garner from the historical Jesus’ life, we search
in vain for any insurrectionist call to arms against Rome’ (L.H. Cohick, ‘Jesus as King of the
Jews’, in S. McKnight and J.B. Modica (eds.), Who Do My Opponents Say I Am? An
Investigation of the Accusations against Jesus [London: T&T Clark, 2008], pp. 111–32, here
118). See also S. Kim, Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings
of Paul and Luke (Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 2008), p. 95.
126 This point was remarked subtly by Brandon: ‘Where Jesus seems to have differed from
Zealot policy was in the fact that he was more immediately concerned to attack the Jewish
sacerdotal aristocracy than to embroil himself with the Romans. But this difference…
doubtless resulted from his immediate aim of preparing Israel for the coming of the king-
dom of God. The Jewish leaders appeared to be the chief obstacle to the achievement of
this aim, so he directed his attack primarily against them’ (Jesus and the Zealots, p. 356, my
emphasis). Obviously, Brandon’s remarks do not exclude anti-Roman resistance.
127 The mention of a cohort in Jn 18.3 (and in Mk 15.16 to describe the set of soldiers mocking
Jesus) is sometimes deemed to be an editorial creation, but many scholars (M. Goguel,
O. Cullmann, P. Winter, H.K. Bond…) opt for the historicity: ‘It is likely that the editor
exaggerated the strength of the detachment and the rank of the officer in command of
the troops, but not that he freely invented the report of Jesus’ arrest by the Romans’
(Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, p. 61, n. 4). It coheres very well with much other material.
128 ‘The implication of the words is that Jesus is aware of an irreconcilable hostility between
the Kingdom for which He stands and the Empire represented by Pontius Pilate’ (T.W.
Manson, The Sayings of Jesus [London: scm, 1949], p. 131).
129 On Jn 11.47–50, see infra, section 5.2, and notes 205–207.

38 Bermejo-Rubio
cases bloodshed caused by the Roman troops is envisaged as the natural and
direct corollary of the activities of Jesus and his followers.
Furthermore, Jesus’ resistance to Rome is not only expressed in the already
mentioned items, but also in the (historically reliable) criticism towards the
chief priests. Given that the attitude of the chief priests was one of political
pliancy rather than of resistance—the high-priest owed his appointment to
the governor and was in fact little more than a tool in his hands, and the priests
performed sacrifices on behalf of Rome and Caesar—outraged national feel-
ings would be directed in the first place against the indigenous supporters or
collaborators of the invading power. It is therefore most natural that a nation-
alistic patriot would have turned against them with even more vindictiveness
than against the Romans themselves. The fact that Jesus pronounced God’s
judgment on the Jewish and Jerusalem rulers is understandable in the light of
the fact that they were the face that the Roman imperial order presented to the
people of Palestine. The same must be said regarding Jesus’ hostility towards
Herod Antipas, who was the face that the Roman imperial order presented to
the people of Galilee. Therefore, an attack against them implied an attack
against the Romans.130
In light of all this material, to deny that Jesus’ message and activities were
addressed against the Roman rule, or to go on stating that the Gospels have not
recorded explicit sayings of Jesus against the Roman Empire, neglects a signifi-
cant line of evidence in the tradition and a somewhat obvious way of reading
that evidence.
4.1.2 Compatibility with Violence

A second crucial point which is apparent from the cluster is that it interrogates
the widespread assumption that Jesus was a man solely of love, mercy, and
peace, lying outside the web of violence. There are several converging passages
(Lk. 22.38; Lk. 22.49; Mk 14.47 and par.) indicating that—at least in the final
phase of Jesus’ ministry—Jesus’ disciples were armed, and ready to use the
weapons they carried. According to Lk. 22.36, Jesus himself encouraged his fol-
lowers to arm themselves with swords,131 so the episodes underlying these
130 The Sicarii did also target privileged power-holders of their own society: ‘Insofar as
Roman imperial rule in Judea worked through the high-priestly rulers in the Jerusalem
Temple, moreover, the Sicarii may have thought they were also striking symbolic blows
against the empire’ (Horsley, Jesus and Empire, p. 43).
131 This sentence cannot be understood in a figurative sense, as ‘sword’ appears alongside
concrete things such as purse and garments (Cullmann, Staat, p. 23). The attempts to
deny the historicity of this passage are unconvincing in light of converging evidence

texts must have been inextricably connected.132 In fact, Jesus’ words (‘Whoever
does not have a sword…’) imply that at least several disciples did already have
swords. All four Gospels record that armed resistance was offered in
Gethsemane,133 and three of them identify the one who struck off the servant’s
ear as a disciple of Jesus.
Furthermore, Jesus and his disciples are remembered as saying and doing
some other things (e.g. the episode of the driving out of the money-changers,
the saying in Mt. 10.34, the readiness of the ‘Sons of Thunder’ to resort to vio-
lence, the vitriolic invectives against some religious opponents, the harsh lan-
guage used against Antipas, the threatening preaching of eschatological
judgment…) which are not to be reconciled with a kind of pacifism avant la
lettre. And this means that, despite the widespread contention that texts such
(swords in Jesus’ entourage are not only present in Lk. 22.36–38; they appear in Lk. 22.49
and in all the Gospels: Mk 14.47 and par.), of the coherence with other Gospel material,
and of the embarrassment criterion: ‘Vom Inhalt her scheidet die Möglichkeit einer
Gemeindebildung aus, da es kaum zu erklären ist, wie die Gemeinde Jesus ein derartiges
Wort Jesus in den Mund gelegt haben kann, während sie sonst bemüht ist, Jesus von allen
zelotischen Verbindung frei zu halten. Von daher würde sich viel eher die Annahme
aufdrängen, dass es sich um ein genuine Jesuswort handelt, das in der übrigen synop-
tischen Überlieferung verdrängt ist’ (H.-W. Bartsch, ‘Jesu Schwertwort, Lukas XXII. 35–38.
Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studie’, nts 20 [1974], pp. 190–203, here 193). Moreover, the
presence of swords contributes to better explain the heavily armed party sent to arrest
Jesus, and the crucifixions at Golgotha.
132 Regarding Lk. 22.36, Loisy states: ‘Le rapprochement est plus que singulier de ce conseil
avec l’emploi réel de l’épée au mont des Oliviers; et les disciples eux-mêmes vont parler
des deux épées qu’ils ont. Prêter a Jésus, dans les circonstances où il se trouve, l’idée d’une
défense à main armée, semblerait une hypothèse…précaire… Il faut avouer cependant
que notre récit, considéré sans parti pris, est construit réellement sur l’idée d’une sem-
blable résistance… Il se pourrait qu’on n’ait rien à retenir de tout cela comme historique…
Cependant le fait d’une résistance opposée par les disciples à l’arrestation de Jésus paraît
assez consistant, et aussi leur prompte déroute; il serait donc possible également, bien
que les interprètes n’aient guère songé à l’admettre, que notre évangeliste ait travaillé sur
une source où la résistance des disciples avait été prevue et même encouragée par Jésus’
(A. Loisy, L’Évangile selon Luc [Paris: Chez L’Auteur, 1924], pp. 522–23).
133 Mk 14.47; Mt. 26.51; Lk. 22.38, 49–50; Jn 18.10–11. The act portrayed in Mk 14.47 was not a
minor one: ‘Der Schwertzieher begeht kein Kavaliersdelikt, wenn er das Ohr eines
anderen abschlägt. Hätte der Schlag nur geringfügig anders getroffen, so wären Kopf oder
Hals verletzt worden. Dieser Schwertschlag ist Gewaltanwendung mit möglicher
Todesfolge’ (Theissen, Lokalkolorit und Zeitgeschichte in den Evangelien, p. 198). This
means that at least some of Jesus’ disciples had war-related expertise (ἐμπειρία πολεμική,
to put it in Josephus’s words: Life 17; B.J. I 305; A.J. XVII 270).

40 Bermejo-Rubio
as Mt. 5.38–48 and Mt. 26.52–53 put Jesus beyond the antagonisms of his age
and make him politically harmless,134 this is wholly unwarranted.135 Jesus’
message does not seem to have been incompatible at all with violence.136
In turn, this implies that current reconstructions muffling or overlooking
the violent overtones of the evidence are hardly plausible.137 The widespread
attempt to downplay or suppress the violent aspects in Jesus’ words and deeds
in order to present a peaceful image of him138 is only possible by an aesthetic
134 ‘Trotz gewisser Berührungspunkte die Verkündigung Jesu…die eigentliche Überwindung

des zelotischen Versuches darstellte, die Herrschaft Gottes auf Erden mit Gewalt herbei-
zuführen’ (Hengel, Die Zeloten, p. 386). According to Paula Fredriksen, Jesus was ‘in life
the least military of figures’ (P. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews [New York:
Vintage, 2000], p. 246).
135 For an analysis of Mt. 5.38–48; 26.52–53 see infra, sections 7.2 and 7.3.
136 A survey of the evidence shows that—such as even some Christian scholars avow—Jesus
‘zu Gewaltanwendung kein prinzipiell negatives Verhältnis hat’ (K. Berger, ‘Der “brutale”
Jesus. Gewaltsames in Wirken und Verkündigung Jesu’, Bibel und Kirche 51 [1996],
pp. 119–27, here 127a). As Maccoby wrote: ‘Any money-changer on whose shoulders Jesus’s
whip descended would be justified in regarding Jesus as an odd kind of pacifist. Are we to
understand that Jesus was a pacifist only towards Romans, and not towards Jews?…
Clearly Jesus was not a pacifist at all’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 144). For an
unprejudiced treatment of this topic, see G. Aichele, ‘Jesus’ Violence’, in G. Aichele and
T. Pippin (eds.), Violence, Utopia and the Kingdom of God: Fantasy and Ideology in the Bible
(London and New York: Routledge, 1998), pp. 72–91.
137 Many scholars who write books on Jesus’ politics do not even cite the passages referring
to swords. Baffling cases (among a host) are those of D.E. Oakman, The Political Aims of
Jesus (Minneapolis, mn: Fortress, 2012), who, however, rightly avows that ‘Jesus had, in
fact, been a lēstēs in advocating rearrangement of debts and tax resistance. And, Pilate
historically had perceived things correctly and rendered judgment’ (p. 127); Ch. Riedo-
Emmenegger, Prophetisch-messianische Provokateure der Pax Romana. Jesus von Nazaret
und andere Störenfriede im Konflikt mit dem Römischen Reich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2005); and McKnight and Modica (eds.), Who Do My Opponents Say I Am?.
I wonder how it is possible to write whole volumes with such titles without tackling such
crucial issues. Lampe’s claim concerning Lk. 22.38 that ‘The plain fact seems to be that
any attempt to interpret verse 38 literalistically as a source of factual information renders
it impossible to make sense of Luke’s narrative as a whole’ (G.W.H. Lampe, ‘The Two
Swords (Luke 22:35–38)’, in Bammel and Moule [eds.], Jesus and the Politics of his Day,
pp. 335–51, here 350) is purely arbitrary.
138 This is made even by such a learned, honest and self-critical scholar as Dale C. Allison, who,
arguing on the basis of Mark 15 and Lk. 9.51–56, equates ‘the spirit of Jesus’ with love of
peace and not resisting to evil (The Historical Christ, pp. 26–27; see also D.C. Allison, ‘A
Response’, in R.J. Miller (ed.), The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate [Santa Rosa, ca: Polebridge,
2001], pp. 99–100). The problem with all this lies in the fact that not only the cluster we have

intervention which constructs a Jesus that is a much more palatable figure.

Such an intervention is surely very helpful for parenetic and pastoral purposes,
but is untenable as a result of critical scholarship.139 This procedure is, I am
afraid, also a danger of some recent attempts of using James C. Scott’s work to
deny the presence of violence in Jesus. It is true that popular resistance to
domination is more complicated than the alternatives of acquiescence or (vio-
lent) revolt, and in fact—as Richard Horsley has convincingly argued140—
Scott’s model can be fruitfully applied to Jesus. But this should not be used as
an alibi to deny the presence of violence in Jesus, for the simple reason that the
Jesus tradition provides us with both disguised and open forms of resistance,
including some violent ones.
Therefore, if some scholars have been accused of going beyond the available
evidence for viewing Jesus as the warrior leader of an army, the overwhelming
majority of them can—and should—be rightly accused of downplaying, and
even of blatantly denying, the evidence pointing to the fact that the group sup-
porting Jesus was—at least in its late period—an armed group. The attempts
to dissociate Jesus from the embarrassing issues of weapons and violence
clearly show the inrush of hidden apologetic agendas.
4.1.3 Jesus versus his Disciples?

Another obvious feature of the pattern is that it concerns both Jesus and his
disciples. Admittedly, there are hints in the tradition at the violent and aggres-
sive proclivities of some disciples, and only they are portrayed as carrying and
using swords, but it was Jesus who uttered the sayings on taking the cross, on
bringing a sword on the earth (Mt. 10.34), and on acquiring swords (Lk. 22.36),
and it was he who nurtured his disciples’ hopes of becoming leading figures in
Israel (Mt. 19.28). It was he who, according to the sources, provoked an incident
in the Temple, and who had royal ambitions, making a seditious claim of
kingship.
This allows us to assess the (lack of) reliability of the current scholarly pro-
cedure consisting in establishing crucial differences regarding violent and
insurrectionist matters between Jesus and his disciples. A very frequent device
does indeed consist in drawing a neat dividing line between them and an
detected, but also other Gospel passages, contradict such a ‘spirit’, and show that the
‘spirit’ of Jesus—if we can talk about such a thing at all—is something less akin to paci-
fism than most scholars like to think.
139 ‘Jesus was associated with a group who expected him to lead a war and he is not reported
to have done much to correct them’ (Buchanan, Jesus: The King and his Kingdom, p. 248).
140 See supra, section 3.4.

42 Bermejo-Rubio
utterly pacific Jesus, who appears to be beyond their violent logic and uncon-
nected with external turbulences.141 Such a device, however, is not only unten-
able and unbelievable in the light of the evidence, but it betrays its slavish
dependence on the similar apologetic procedure already present in the Gospels
themselves.142
Although there is every indication that Jesus had a strong personality and
some idiosyncratic views, and one can surely assume that there were differ-
ences between him and his disciples (just as there were probably differences
within the group of his disciples themselves), establishing a yawning chasm
between him and his disciples is utterly counter-intuitive. Jesus was the
leader and master of his group, so his guidelines must have been followed. It
was he indeed who chose the group, who held them as his disciples through-
out his public life, and who sent them to preach in his name, so he must have
checked that they were not too obtuse. Therefore, what the disciples wanted
and did must have agreed, at least in general terms, with Jesus’ own goals and
expectations, at least during his lifetime. If the disciples waited for an inte-
gral redemption of Israel, Jesus must have expected it too; and if they were
armed with swords and eventually used them, this means that violence was
not ultimately incompatible with Jesus’ view.143 The attempt to dissociate
Jesus from the expectations generated by his claims or from the bloodshed
caused by his disciple(s) is historically implausible and verges on the
nonsensical.
4.2 What Does it Mean to State that Jesus was a Seditionist?

The pattern we have identified proves that both Jesus and his group were
remembered in the early tradition as people involved in seditious activity.
141 See, for instance, Cullmann’s view: ‘Dort in Gethsemane handelte es sich noch ein letz-
tes Mal darum, ob Jesus dem Drängen der Jünger nachgeben sollte, den römischen
Soldaten, die ihn festnahmen, Widerstand zu leisten’ (Cullmann, Staat, p. 12). This
device is all-pervasive in Christian quarters, but it is also exemplified in e.g. the Jewish
scholar Paul Winter. He recognizes that several sayings exemplify the political concern
of the disciples (On the Trial of Jesus, p. 193), and that ‘the little group that gathered
around Jesus clearly had political-revolutionary tendencies’ (On the Trial of Jesus,
p. 196). But Winter adds: ‘Yet they do not prove anything about Jesus himself… The say-
ings in Acts 1, 6; Mt 19, 28 and Lc 19, 27 are evidently “Gemeindebildungen”’ (On the Trial
of Jesus, p. 193).
142 E.g. Lk. 19.11 implies that only the disciples—not Jesus—were wrong when they expected
the impending arrival of the Kingdom.
143 ‘If Jesus had been leading a nonviolent revolution he apparently selected a non-
cooperative group’ (Buchanan, Jesus: The King and His Kingdom, p. 247).

‘Sedition’, however, is a term that can be understood in several ways. To what

extent and in which sense was Jesus a seditionist?
The fact that the Gospel writers—who were indeed pro-Roman, composed
their works several decades after Jesus’ death and outside Palestine in a non-
Jewish language and with a Hellenistic outlook, at a time when conditions
were very different from those prevailing during Jesus’ lifetime—misrepre-
sented the fact that Jesus was executed as a rebel against Rome (trying to pres-
ent him as a blasphemer against the Jewish religion), and likewise downplayed
or obscured the fact that he was involved in rebellious claims, can be regarded
as strongly established. Of course, the Gentile-Christians for whom the Gospels
were written were in a situation that was very different from that of Jesus and
his first disciples.144 The fact that the evidence at our disposal has been tam-
pered with and misrepresented should be faced by every responsible scholar
making historical research.
The extent of that misrepresentation is of course a debatable matter. Some
scholars have surmised that the considerable degree of editorial manipulation
and tendentiousness that can be tracked in the Gospels (e.g. in shifting the
blame of Jesus’ crucifixion from the Roman to the Jewish authorities) indicate
that the revolutionary atmosphere of Jesus’ activities has been altered almost
beyond recognition, so the underlying story must have originally been a quite
different one.145 This has led them to infer that Jesus actually was a truly mili-
tary figure who tried to stage a coup d’état.146 For instance, according to Robert
Eisler, he entered Jerusalem amid the acclaim of his followers as a messianic
saviour, held the temple courts for a time and parts of the city by force, until
Pilate’s soldiers mixed the blood of Galileans with temple sacrifices, toppled
144 ‘They were not Jews, and were not living in a country occupied by a hostile power. They
were anxious not to give the impression of being subversives or rebels; but they had a
problem on their hands, for their object of worship was a Jew who had been crucified by
the Romans. At the very time when the Gospels were being written thousands of Jews
were being crucified for the offence of rebellion against Rome. It was therefore important
for the Christians to argue that Jesus, despite all appearances to the contrary (the most
damning being the crucifixion itself), was a non-political figure’ (Maccoby, Revolution in
Judaea, p. 127).
145 ‘Das ist in der Form, wie es hier steht, eine ganz sonderbare Geschichte, voll von
Widersprüchen, die ursprünglich ganz anders gelautet haben muß’ (Kautsky, Ursprung,
p. 387).
146 ‘Dieser Widerspruch wird nur dann begreiflich, wenn wir annehmen, daß die christliche
Überlieferung ursprünglich von einem geplanten Handstreich berichtete, bei dem
Jesus gefangen würde’ (Kautsky, Ursprung, p. 387). See also Montserrat, El galileo armado,
pp. 89–124.

44 Bermejo-Rubio
the tower of Siloam upon others and arrested and dispatched by court martial
Jesus himself.147 Put otherwise, our sources have dramatically downplayed the
seriousness of the danger Jesus represented: he must have waged a guerrilla
warfare in the wake of those acting when Herod died,148 led an important con-
tingent, and in Gethsemane a large-scale battle took place.
Despite the widespread ridicule of such hypotheses in the guild, I must
avow that the distortion suffered by the Gospel material is so deep and percep-
tible, that one cannot easily dismiss such reconstructions as the mere out-
come of over-imaginative minds prone to making fanciful claims. There are
too many intriguing passages, and too many traces of tampering, to infer that
what these scholars attribute to Jesus is simply impossible (why, for instance,
was a heavily armed troop necessary to seize Jesus and his retinue, if these
men were so harmless?).149 Notwithstanding this caveat, scientific prudence
suggests that, as far as possible, we should refrain from advancing unnecessar-
ily bold hypotheses.150 In science, all other things being equal, the simplest
explanation is to be preferred. So below I am weighing up a somewhat differ-
ent approach.
Before I continue, one should realize how unfortunate it is that over-
simplistic alternatives are offered in this matter: either Jesus’ path to kingship
leads via the battlefield and the gaining of power, or he was an idyllic pacifist.
Let us take, for instance, the following statement: ‘The royal pretender must
have attracted sufficient support to be capable of offering a real threat to the
Roman government. He must have had a private army or, at the very least, a
considerable retinue of armed men. Virtually nothing that we know about
Jesus fits this portrait at all.’151 The problem is that everything in this paragraph
is wholly gratuitous. Leaving aside that Harvey conveniently overlooks much
relevant evidence, it is not necessary for a man making royal claims to have a
whole army, and it was not necessary to have a ‘considerable retinue’ at one’s
disposal to constitute a threat for peace in Jerusalem (especially at the reli-
giously and politically charged Passover season) and to be accused of sedition:
147 Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, pp. 476–525.

148 λῃστρικὸς πόλεμος (guerrilla warfare) is the phrase used by Josephus, B.J. II 65.
149 ‘Jesus was associated with a group who expected him to lead a war and he is not reported
to have done much to correct them’ (Buchanan, Jesus: The King and His Kingdom,
pp. 247–48).
150 I am afraid that overblown points in some hypotheses of the seditious Jesus might be
explained as a compensatory reaction to the shamelessly apologetic views prevailing in
scholarship.
151 A.E. Harvey, Jesus on Trial: A Study in the Fourth Gospel (London: spck, 1976), p. 3.

even a small group of armed men would have been enough. And there is every
indication that Jesus had, at least, such an entourage.152
Unlike what many scholars assume, the hypothesis of a rebellious Jesus
(followed by an armed retinue) does not necessarily imply that Jesus was a
guerrilla-fighter, nor—as Bar Kokhba long after—the chief of an army, nor that
the kernel of his preaching was advocating armed struggle against the Romans,
nor that he aspired to take power through military means.153 It is indeed prob-
able, as most claim, that Jesus looked to God for vindication of his message. He
might have thought that the arrival of the kingdom ultimately was in God’s
hands,154 that it would not be established by human might or by force of arms,
and accordingly that the dirty work of crushing the Romans and their collabo-
rators would be God’s (or his angelic hosts’)155 task. But the belief that deliver-
ance would mainly come by supernatural means does not necessarily discount
thinking that human activity plays a role in the eschatological conflict.
Although Jesus believed that it is God who would act in the end-time to estab-
lish his kingdom, this does not imply that human beings should only wait pas-
sively for an awesome miracle, nor that men’s attitudes and activity were
superfluous.156 Jesus warned his disciples against entering into temptation,
and perhaps he thought that a certain measure of human co-operation could
be significant, even decisive, for God’s final appearance.157 In fact, elsewhere
152 On the true extent of the group led by Jesus we can only make conjectures, especially taking
into account the fact that we cannot be wholly sure about the size and character of the
troops sent against his group. I think Jesus had—at least—a small band of supporters
(disciples?) armed with swords. This is all the more probable because Jesus’ economic situ-
ation and itinerancy do not seem to have allowed him to gather an army. An interesting
implication of Jn 11.47–50 is that Jesus was not acting alone, as a single unsupported man
could not have represented such an actual threat as is expressed in the high-priest’s speech.
153 E.g.: ‘Jesus then was not a guerrilla leader. He did not train his followers in military exer-
cises or engage in skirmishes with Roman troops’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 158).
In fact, the thesis of a Jesus involved in some kind of anti-Roman resistance does neither
imply that his aim was war as such or that he was an especially bellicose man. Undoubtedly,
Jesus probably longed for an age and a state (the ‘kingdom of God’) where violence and
human conflict would be definitely wiped out.
154 E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London: scm, 1985), pp. 231, 326; J.P. Meier, A Marginal
Jew. III. Companions and Competitors (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 624–25; among
many others.
155 On Jesus and the angelic hosts, see infra, section 6.3.
156 See this assumption e.g. in J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew. II. Mentor, Message and Miracles
(New York: Doubleday, 1994), p. 331.
157 ‘He must have felt that this manifestation would depend, to some extent, on his own
worthiness and that of his disciples’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 194).

46 Bermejo-Rubio
he asked from his disciples a wholehearted commitment, even that of facing

an awful destiny and taking up the cross.
This means, in turn, that the typical objection that Jesus could not advocate
any kind of violent resistance against the Empire because he thought God was
in charge158 is desperately simplistic and unwarranted. Even if Jesus did not
have a plan that included practical strategy,159 this would not mean that he can
be kept far and unconnected from events involving the use of arms. According
to the Gospels it did not prevent him from telling his disciples to arm
themselves.
A convincing explanation for the extant evidence is that Jesus, hoping for
the imminent eschatological manifestation of God in the decisive turning-
point of his (last) visit to Jerusalem, made his followers ready for the upcoming
breakthrough.160 This is understandable in light of the Jewish tradition, for the
prophets had said that at the end of time there would be a final battle and one
should be prepared for it.161 Surely the most important thing was spiritual—
not military—preparedness, but when the hour finally came fighting would be
required, so a certain synergism or co-operation with God is presupposed.162
Therefore, perhaps Jesus limited the participation of his group in violent issues
to the decisive eschatological moment. This interpretation is all the more plau-
sible not only because the tradition makes plain that—just as virtually all his
coreligionists—Jesus conceived the day of redemption as also a day of
158 See e.g. Fast, Jesus and Human Conflict, p. 86; Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 244, among
many others.
159 Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, p. 235.
160 See Montserrat, El galileo armado, pp. 139–40. According to several scholars, Jesus would
have behaved as a seditionist ‘at least in the closing stages of his life’ (D.R. Griffiths, The
New Testament and the Roman State [Swansea: John Penry Press, 1970], p. 51); ‘Die
Gewaltsamkeiten im Wirken Jesu häufen sich anläßlich seines Kontaktes mit Jerusalem’
(Berger, ‘Der “brutale” Jesus’, pp. 119a; 127a).
161 E.g. Joel 4.9–10. The prophecy of Zechariah, on which Jesus seems to have relied (see
Zech. 9.9; 14.21), states that the location of the eschatological miracle would be the Mount
of Olives (Zech. 14.1–5), and that the Lord of Hosts would raise up the sons of Zion to do
battle against the heathen forces. ‘Like the boy David these sons of Zion would devour
and subdue their enemies with whatever weapons were at hand, because the might of
the heathen was to be of no more avail than the sword of Goliath’ (Farmer, Maccabees,
p. 199).
162 Judas the Galilean and his followers were not of the opinion that they did not require
God’s help (B.J. II 451). The extent of this synergism must have been a hotly debated issue
at the time, as it was in the rabbinic tradition; see Hengel, Die Zeloten, pp. 127–29. Josephus
(Life 22) implies that a defensive war is just, but in the speech contained in B.J. V 399 he
rhetorically advocates total reliance upon God for protection.

vengeance on God’s enemies,163 but also because we find an interesting paral-

lel: the members of the Qumran community earnestly believed in a Warrior
God who would crush the overwhelming military superiority of the Romans at
the end, but this did not prevent them from expecting to fight in the eschato-
logical battle along with the angelic hosts.164
Strikingly, the current assumption amongst scholars that it would have been
absurd to have only a few swords for a clash with the Romans, fails to take into
account either the lack of pragmatic measures in some eschatological vision-
aries,165 or the fact that in Jewish tradition contained in the sacred scriptures
several heroes, such as Samson, Gideon,166 Jonathan, Joshua, David, the
163 It is easy to imagine how a preacher who conceived God as a judge entitled to eschatologi-
cal retribution and sponsoring violence (see e.g. Lk. 19.27) and thought of himself as the
eschatological God’s agent would have arrogated the same prerogative. There is a certain
coherence between ‘Jesus’ rhetorically violent condemnation of the status quo, his physi-
cally violent anticipation of judgment in his temple actions, and the violent visions of
God’s eschatological triumph accomplished through Jesus’ parousia and eschatological
battle’ (W. Carter, ‘Constructions of Violence and Identities in Matthew’s Gospel’, in
S. Matthews and E.L. Gibson [eds.], Violence in the New Testament [London: T&T Clark,
2005], pp. 81–108, here 102).
164 C. Batsch, ‘Le “pacifisme des esséniens”, un mythe historiographique’, Revue de Qumran
83 (2004), pp. 457–68; S. Weitzman, ‘Warring against Terror: The War Scroll and the
Mobilization of Emotion’, Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 (2009), pp. 213–41; Farmer,
Maccabees, p. 195. Although the expression ‘Thine is the battle’ (‫ )לכה המלהמה‬is repeated
(1 qm 11.1–5), swords are part of the eschatological weaponry (1qm 5.7.11–14). ‘So kann die
Grundtendenz der Kriegsrolle—ungeachtet ihres essenischen Ursprungs—als ganz und
gar “zelotisch” angesehen werden’ (Hengel, Die Zeloten, p. 287). In fact the Qumran com-
munity ended up fighting against the Romans.
165 There is evidence in first-century Judaea of people who went to the desert, expecting
to see divine signs, and who faced Roman troops despite being unarmed: see Josephus,
B.J. VII 437–440.
166 ‘Jesus probably had in mind the example of Gideon… Salvation would have a military
aspect and the faithful would not be mere onlookers at God’s miracles; but the glory of the
victory would be primarily God’s’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 158). ‘Jesus…was a
convinced apocalyptist, who considered that the fight against Rome would be won largely
by miraculous means, and therefore made no serious military preparations…only a token
military preparation was necessary… To drive out the Romans by force of arms, as Judas
Maccabaeus had driven out the Greeks, was not his purpose; such success would only
lead to the founding of one more dynasty like the Hasmoneans. Jesus would inaugurate
the kingdom of God, a new era in world history, or nothing. It was this scorn of ordinary
militarism that was perverted by the Gentile-Christian Church into a doctrine of pacifism’
(Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, pp. 172–73).

48 Bermejo-Rubio
Maccabees,167 and so on, had all fought against apparently hopeless odds.168
Nor does it take into account that Jesus and his disciples seem to have really
and passionately believed that at the right moment God—or his angelic
legions—would be on their side. Put otherwise, the current assumption in the
guild does not seriously take into account the possibility of understanding
Jesus’ story within the history of Jewish piety, nor Jesus’ committed and uncom-
promising faith in God.
An obvious inference from the former survey is that, even if allowance for a
certain measure of Jesus’ idiosyncrasy should be perhaps made, the gist of
Brandon’s (and others’) thesis is essentially right: the real Jesus was more com-
mitted to violence than the Christian sources recognize, and there was not an
unbridgeable gulf between his stance and that of the members of Jewish resis-
tance groups.169 Although ‘Zealots’ in the technical sense is a name that must be
reserved for a later movement arising in the Jewish War, the idea that Jesus’ sym-
pathies would have been with those fighting against the Romans comes as quite
obvious. Jesus’ goals and religious fervour were politically subversive, and were
not incompatible in the least with those of the anti-Roman rebels.170 In any
case, the presumable capital crime of him and his followers was laesa maiestas
or maiestas imminuta, namely, an offence against the majesty of the state.171
167 ‘It is not difficult—Judas answered—, for a small group to overpower a large one. It makes
no difference to the Lord whether we are rescued by many people or by just a few. Victory
in battle does not depend on who has the largest army; it is the Lord's power that deter-
mines the outcome. Our enemies are coming against us with great violence, intending to
plunder our possessions and kill our wives and children. But we are fighting for our lives
and for our religion. When we attack, the Lord will crush our enemies, so don’t be afraid
of them’ (1 Macc. 3.18–22). See also 1 Macc. 4.30–33; 1 Macc. 7.41–42; 2 Macc. 8.18–21. On
Judas Maccabaeus, who was preparing for the battle, is told: ‘For he knew that it is not by
arms, but as the Lord decides, that he gains the victory for those who deserve it’ (2 Macc.
15.21; see 15.22–24).
168 As Jonathan said to his armour-bearer: ‘Come, let us go over to the outpost of those uncir-
cumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from
saving, whether by many or by few’ (1 Sam. 14.6).
169 ‘A bond of common sympathy surely united Jesus and his followers with those who sought
to maintain the ideals of Judas of Galilee’ (Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, p. 358).
170 ‘Other anti-Roman groups would not have regarded his activities as in any way opposed
to their own. Even those who did not join his movement would have followed his career
with admiration and hope’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, pp. 158–59). On the conver-
gence with the ideals of the anti-Roman resistance, see supra, section 3.3.
171 See e.g. R.L. Webb, ‘The Roman Examination and Crucifixion of Jesus: Their Historicity
and Implications’, in Bock and Webb [eds.], Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus,
pp. 669–773, esp. 754–55.

Sometimes it is not possible to find the truth, but sometimes it is not even
necessary. It suffices with detecting all possible truths, especially if they have
the same basic meaning. We will never be able to ascertain the precise degree
of involvement of Jesus in anti-Roman resistance, but there is too much evi-
dence hinting at the seditious meaning of his thinking and activity so as not to
take it into account in a credible reconstruction.172 We cannot be absolutely
sure about what kind of seditionist Jesus was—put another way, about how
long and to what extent Jesus was a seditionist—but we can be reasonably sure
that he was one of them. Any denial of his seditious character runs against the
available evidence and defies historical plausibility.
4.3 The Compatibility of the Pattern with Other Patterns, or Jesus’

Many-sidedness
The pattern featuring a rebellious Jesus is not the only one that has been
detected in the sources. Other patterns reveal that Jesus was a faithful Jew, that
he hoped and announced that the end of the present order of things was near,
that he was deemed to be an exorcist and healer, that he was a master who
gathered a group of disciples, that he made himself out to be somebody special
and viewed himself as God’s spokesman; and so on. What I want to emphasize
now is that our pattern perfectly fits and is consistent with all these others. In
fact, that pattern contains items (referring, for instance, to the preaching of the
Kingdom of God and the restoration of Israel, to the Gerasene exorcism—the
most detailed miracle story in Mark—, to Jesus’ claims—the triumphal entry,
his self-presentation as king, the titulus crucis—, to his disciples…) which
reflect and presuppose those clusters, thereby conveying other dimensions of
Jesus. Put otherwise, the seditious Jesus is not the whole Jesus, and to describe
him as a seditionist does not aim at capturing a kind of ‘essence’ of the figure,
but merely a dimension or aspect of him (although admittedly a decisive one).
This conclusion allows us to give the lie to another typical objection to the
hypothesis of a seditious Jesus, namely, the claim that it is fatally one-sided, as
far as it overlooks other aspects of his message and personality.173 Although it
172 In fact, both the available evidence and the consistent tampering with the material car-
ried out by the evangelists or their sources allow us to surmise that some events in Jesus’
life must have been more seriously compromising and incriminating for the Galilean
preacher and his entourage than the extant texts admit.
173 ‘Brandon compromet sa thèse par le caractère unilateral qu’il lui donne. Si Jésus a été ce
que’il nous dit, il n’a pas été que cela. C’est tout l’Évangile qui témoigne que Jésus n’a pas
seulement été le Messie juif qui a voulu restaurer la royauté de Dieu dans la Palestine
occupée par les idolâtres… Réduire le procès du Christ à un épisode de la résistance

50 Bermejo-Rubio
may be true that some scholars advancing the view of a rebellious Jesus have
tended to downplay the relevance of his teaching,174 most of them do not deny
in the least the primarily religious nature of his personality, or the fact that he
often spoke to the people on spiritual and moral topics, thereby accepting that
he was more than a ‘mere seditionist’.175 Any proponent of the hypothesis
would freely grant that many items in the Gospels do not compel a seditious
Jesus, but this only proves that a subversive framework for this figure is just a
framework, not the whole picture. People engaged in nationalistic resistance
need not be monomaniacs, so it would be silly to think that one could reduce
everything in Jesus to his rebellious stance. Our hypothesis does not deny
many well-assured results of Jesus research, such as the view that he was an
apocalyptic and charismatic preacher with deep religious convictions, and so
on; and the other way around, his role as a preacher does not at all preclude a
seditious stance. This is to be expected, because religion and politics were
inextricably fused in first-century Judaism: to the Jews national liberty was not
just a matter of politics, it was also of great spiritual significance.
Therefore, unlike what the Markan Jesus himself and standard scholarship
seem to imply,176 there is no contradiction at all between being a religious
antiromaine en Palestine, c’est dénaturer radicalement les données historiques les plus
sûres’ (J. Daniélou, ‘Bulletin d’Histoire des Origines Chrétiennes’, Recherches de Science
Religieuse 56 [1968], pp. 115–18, here 118); ‘Disastrous Onesidedness’ (Hengel, ‘Review of
Brandon’s Jesus and the Zealots’, p. 235); ‘Extremely One-sided Study’ (M. De Jonge,
‘Review of S.G.F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots’, vc 23 [1969], pp. 228–31, here 231).
174 This tendency is perceptible in Montserrat, El galileo armado, p. 129. Nonetheless, it
verges on the unfair to blame those scholars focusing on political issues—avoided by
most in the guild—for not tackling the whole range of topics which have been already
handled ad nauseam in the endless literature on the Galilean.
175 ‘A lofty and poethical enthusiasm, a religious patriotism promoted by the national litera-
ture, more than the ordinary motives of the demagogue, probably impelled Jesus into
those parts of his career which most embarrass his panegyrists’ (Ch. C. Hennell, An
Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity [2nd edn; London: T. Allman, 1841], p. 446).
Brandon clearly stated that Jesus was motivated by his desire ‘to prepare Israel spiritually
for the advent of the Kingdom of God’ (Jesus and the Zealots, p. 342; see p. 17, n. 4). Others
remark that Jesus’ preaching ‘raises him from the status of a blood-and-thunder “end-of-
the-world” revivalist’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 154); ‘He was no ordinary rebel,
either, but a Prophet with a lofty vision…he was a King-Messiah… At the same time, he
was a Rabbi’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 209). ‘Jesus was a religious leader not just
a secular militarist’ (Buchanan, Jesus: The King and his Kingdom, p. 251: this book is mainly
devoted to the analysis of the concept of Kingdom of God, chreias and parables).
176 Mk 14.48–49. ‘Jesus of Nazareth was not in any sense of the word λῃστής. He was no revo-
lutionary, prompted by political ambitions for the power of government; he was a teacher’

teacher and being a seditionist.177 Far from it, it was precisely the intensity of
Jesus’ religious beliefs that led him to an opposition which caused his death
sentence by Pilate. To state that Jesus was involved in anti-Roman activities
does not imply in the least ‘to equate the kingdom for which Jesus looked with
the mere “general agenda” of independence from Roman imperial rule’.178 No
serious scholar has ever made such an equation, which seems to be nothing
but painful reductionism and trivializing caricature.
As other holy men in Jesus’ age, the Galilean preacher was able to do many
things and address multiple concerns.179 For instance, as far as we know, John
the Baptist was an eschatological prophet, a charismatic teacher, a designer of
powerful metaphors, an innovator in religious practice, a faithful preacher
who died as a martyr and a person who had a lasting impact. Likewise, Jesus
was a complex figure whose many-sidedness is not to be denied. Ironically,
one-sidedness could be blamed on those abundant scholars denying, over-
looking or downplaying the seditious dimension of Jesus, as they do not take
seriously into account a great deal of Gospel evidence.
5 The Explanatory Power of the Hypothesis
If the existence of a recurrent pattern pointing to a rebellious Jesus and endowed

with the best guarantees of historicity is a powerful argument supporting the
hypothesis that Jesus was indeed a seditionist, a second argument lies in
the great explanatory power resulting from this hypothesis, and specifically of
(Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, p. 69); ‘The entire teaching material which is attributed to
Jesus points away from his being a revolutionary in a way that would actually have threat-
ened Rome. Either the evangelists have not only invented the Jewish trial scenes, but also
an enormously rich body of teaching material, while completely hiding Jesus’ true views,
or he was no revolutionary in the political sense of the word. The latter seems overwhelm-
ingly the more likely hypothesis’ (W.D. Davies and E.P. Sanders, ‘Jesus: From the Jewish
Point of View’, in The Cambridge History of Judaism. Volume 3: The Early Roman Period
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999], pp. 618–77, here 670).
177 Let us recall the case of the two great Torah teachers (σοφισταί) who encouraged their
disciples to cut the Roman eagle down from above the Temple gate as Herod lay dying (B.J.
I 648–651); Judas the Galilean is also called a σοφιστής (B.J. II 118). When referring to the
death of John the Baptist (A.J. XVIII 18), Josephus shows that Herod Antipas was not both-
ered about such distinctions.
178 See Bryan, Render to Caesar, p. 51.
179 See G. Anderson, Sage, Saint and Sophist: Holy Men and their Associates in the Early Roman
Empire (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 70–72.

52 Bermejo-Rubio
the version that I have sketched in the previous section. Below I am arguing that
this hypothesis provides the best explanation for a large amount of data.
5.1 Jesus’ Death: No Longer a Puzzle

Countless pages have been devoted to answer the questions ‘What/who killed
Jesus?’, ‘Why was Jesus killed?’ Nevertheless, the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus
involved in anti-Roman resistance provides the best and simplest explanation
for his execution on the cross. This certainly accounts more convincingly for
Jesus’ destiny than the patently inadequate ‘explanation’ provided by Mark—
and, in his wake, by legions of modern scholars.180
It is important to realize that this explanation of Jesus’ death has nothing to
do with the naïveté of assuming that a significant event must always have a
significant cause, or that a sentence always presupposes the existence of guilt.
Justice can miscarry, and abuse of power occurs everywhere, so the Gospel
view that an innocent Jesus was sentenced to death because of a tragic mistake
or injustice is not intrinsically improbable.181 It is, however, exceedingly
implausible (not to say simply unbelievable) when the available data are thor-
oughly surveyed. If we had only the simple datum of Jesus’ crucifixion, we
could be ready, even disposed, to accept the idea of a tragic mistake or (in
accord with the Christian tradition) of a malevolent plot against an innocent
and defenceless victim, but we have—along with the inconsistencies of the
Passion accounts—further evidence strongly calling into question such a com-
forting and in bonam partem interpretation. This evidence compels us to draw
the conclusion that the Romans had very good reasons to condemn Jesus as
guilty of sedition: he was executed because of his words and actions against
the Pax Romana.
Our hypothesis also explains other details and circumstances of Jesus’ death
which are usually (and strikingly) overlooked in standard scholarship.182 One
180 ‘Die Annahme, daß die Hinrichtung Jesu durch seine Rebellion herbeigeführt wurde, ist…
diejenige, die allein die Andeutungen der Evangelien verständlich macht’ (K. Kautsky, Der
Ursprung des Christentums. Eine historische Untersuchung [Stuttgart: Verlag von J.H.W.
Dietz Nachf., 1908], p. 390).
181 ‘On a cursory reading, they [the Gospels] present a convincing case for the innocence of
Jesus. And such a presentation is not intrinsically improbable: similar instances of the
miscarriage of justice and judicial murder could be cited from all periods of history’
(S.G.F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity
[Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967], p. 2).
182 On the issues tackled in the next paragraphs, see my article ‘(Why) Was Jesus the Galilean
Crucified Alone? Solving a False Conundrum’, jsnt 36.2 (2013), pp. 127–54.

of them is that the four Gospels, despite all their differences, agree on the point
that Jesus was crucified along with two other men.183 There seem to be no rea-
son to question the historicity of this piece of information,184 all the less so
because it runs against the Gospel tendency to isolate Jesus.185 Now, the sim-
plest and most plausible reason that a group of men was crucified together by
the Romans is that there was indeed a connection between them, and that
they were tried and sentenced for the same crime.186 Unfortunately, just as it
happens with the attacker in Mk 14.47, the identity of these men is left in the
dark. Nonetheless, given that Mark and Matthew call them λῃσταί, and in light
of the hints that Jesus was involved in anti-Roman activities, it is a fair infer-
ence that those crucified with Jesus actually had a close relationship to him,
and that this was the reason why they were crucified together. In fact, several
scholars have reasonably surmised that they were members of the group that
caused the uprising mentioned by Mark and Luke (according to whom there
were at this Passover people in prison because of that uprising),187 while,
according to others, they belonged to the group of Jesus.188 It is hard to decide
which of these options is correct, but only in either of these cases does the
scene of the collective crucifixion make any real sense.189
183 Mk 15.27; 15.32; Jn 19.18.

184 It is far-fetched to argue that the scene of the collective crucifixion has been built to show
that the Scripture had been fulfilled (cf. Isa. 53.12 LXX with Mk 15.28). Mark 15.28 is not
found in the earliest and best Alexandrian and Western manuscripts; it is probably an
assimilation to Lk. 22.37, with which the last four Greek words exactly agree.
185 ‘Associé à d’autres condamnés, Jésus perd un isolement qui le mettrait en relief’
(S. Légasse, Le procès de Jésus. L’histoire [Paris: Cerf, 1994], p. 144).
186 See Lk. 23.40 (the crucified are ‘under the same sentence of condemnation’).
187 ‘Die beiden Bandenkrieger werden mit Recht zu den Aufständischen (στασιασταί) um
Barabbas gezählt’ (Pesch, Markusevangelium II, p. 486); ‘If Jesus’ companions were drawn
from these insurrectionists, the grisly scene at Golgotha obtains a unity otherwise lacking:
the supposed messianic King of the Jews at the center, flanked by two zealot-bandits—a
scene compatible with everything that we know about the mentality of colonial officers
intent on teaching law and order to rebellious natives’ (M. Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and
Witches: The Riddles of Culture [New York: Vintage Books, 1974], p. 192).
188 See e.g. Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, pp. 525–26; ‘Two of his accomplices’ (S.G.F. Brandon,
The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth [London: Batsford, 1968], p. 103); ‘Jesus was crucified with
two other revolutionaries, possibly members of his own movement’ (H. Maccoby,
Revolution in Judaea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance [London: Ocean Books, 1973],
p. 218); J. Montserrat Torrents, El galileo armado. Historia laica de Jesús (Madrid: Edaf,
2007), pp. 142–43. ‘It would be passing strange, if two such disturbances in Jerusalem at
this time were wholly unconnected with each other’ (Brandon, Trial, p. 147).
189 Note that violence is a common denominator of both groups: cf. Mk 14.47 with Mk 15.7.

54 Bermejo-Rubio
The Gospels recount not only that Jesus was crucified along with two other
men, but also between them: Jesus is crucified in the middle.190 It is most prob-
able that the evangelists depict the scene with Jesus in the centre of two men
because it was known to have happened in this way. So, if this detail deserves
any historical credit, we must wonder what its significance might be. Although
it is hard to find any scholarly reflections on this issue, if Jesus spearheaded an
armed group and made kingly claims, the reason for the central disposition in
the collective crucifixion becomes crystal-clear. Jesus was actually placed in
the middle because the Romans considered him to be the leader of those men
crucified with him. This placing of Jesus in the centre, in turn, did not come
from the feverish imagination of the Romans, but arose from Jesus’ actual
(insurrectionist) self-perception. In fact, the titulus crucis and the mocking of
Jesus by the soldiers are also most easily explained if Jesus claimed to be a king
in the religious-political sense.191
The former analysis allows us to tackle again the question of whether Pilate
had sufficient grounds to crucify Jesus, or whether he could crucify him over a
trifle. It seems to be a sensible assumption that, even if a Roman prefect was
ruthless and carried out trials according to cognitio extra ordinem—or just
simple interrogations—, he must have had serious reasons to crucify a man.
On the one hand, he must answer to the emperor. On the other hand, he knew
well that arbitrary cruelty could earn him the hatred and resentment of too
many people. Perhaps Pilate did not care in the least about being hated, but he
surely cared a lot about the eventual consequences of that hate (and this also
applies to any possible collaboration of the Jewish authorities with the Romans
leading to executions). Now, if a Roman governor of Judaea needed serious
reasons to crucify a Jew, a fortiori the most probable thing is that he needed
powerful reasons to crucify a group of Jews.192
190 Mk 15.27; Jn 19.18; GosPet 4.10.

191 Although there is no rhyme or reason to Barabbas’s account as it stands, the Gospels’
news about an insurrection in Jerusalem in the same epoch when Jesus was there gives
much food for thought.
192 In an extensive article, Robert Webb has made an attempt at overcoming the widespread
and implausible view of Jesus’ crucifixion as a travesty of justice: ‘[Jesus’ followers] were
evidently looking for the “kingdom” that Jesus taught them about, and they were thinking
that both Jesus and they themselves would play some role in that kingdom… [I]f they did
view this kingdom as having implications for their own socio-political situation in addi-
tion to their religious beliefs, then from the point of view of Rome’s political control,
Pilate’s verdict was correct’ (R.L. Webb, ‘The Roman Examination and Crucifixion of
Jesus: Their Historicity and Implications’, in D.L. Bock and R.L. Webb [eds.], Key Events in
the Life of the Historical Jesus [Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 2009], pp. 758–59). This scholar,

5.2 The Last Days in Jerusalem: A Consistent Pattern

The Gospel accounts of the last week of Jesus and his group in Jerusalem con-
tain several intriguing details. For instance, in Mark there are traces of clandes-
tine and nocturnal moves, alongside prearrangements with followers. If these
passages deserve any credit, all this caution is exceedingly puzzling unless the
seditious character of Jesus’ group is contemplated. The story in Mk 11.1–6, in
which Jesus dispatches two disciples to take a colt, has a striking parallel with
the dispatching of two disciples to make preparations for the Last Supper
(14.12–16): in both instances, Jesus foretells the way in which the mission will
turn out, provides his disciples with a sentence to say if challenged (‘the Lord
has need of it…’; ‘the teacher says…’), and on both occasions things happen as
he has predicted.193 Although to the Gospel readers these stories would con-
tain clear indications of Jesus’ prophetic insight—in fact it has often been said
that they are a demonstration of Jesus’ authoritative control, and are thus
‘christologically determined’194—, neither narrative specifically mentions
clairvoyance, and those brief sentences that Jesus provides his disciples do per-
fectly work in the context as passwords. This is understandable, as insurrec-
tionists depend on tight secrecy for survival and success, and Jesus had good
reasons to be afraid of adversaries. The verse in Mk 11.11, which culminates the
triumphal entry into Jerusalem, narrates that Jesus ‘looked round at every-
thing’ (περιβλεψάμενος πάντα), but the meaning of this act remains unex-
plained; the curious phrase probably betrays an act of reconnoitering for
action on the morrow, as Brandon shrewdly suggested.195
I have argued that Jesus might have limited the participation of his group in
violent issues to the momentous eschatological events. This would account for
however, does not discuss the fact that the available reports on the crucifixion are reports
about a collective crucifixion, nor does he mention other evidence which seems to have
had an obvious bearing on the crucifixion, such as the presence of swords in Jesus’ group
and their use at Gethsemane, or Jesus’ probable opposition to the payment of tribute. All
this would have made his conclusion much stronger than it might have been.
193 See e.g. on Mk 14.14: ‘The fact that in His message Jesus merely describes Himself as
ὁδιδάσκαλος suggests a pre-arrangement. The same also must be said of the otherwise
strange question’ (V. Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark [2nd edn; London:
Macmillan, 1972], p. 537). As to the reaction of the householder in Mk 14.16, ‘on the
assumption of a previous arrangement, his action is entirely natural’ (p. 538). See also
J. Marcus, Mark 8–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven,
ct and London: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 948.
194 E.g. D.R. Catchpole, ‘The “Triumphal” Entry’, in Bammel and Moule (eds.), Jesus and the
Politics of His Day, p. 324.
195 Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, p. 9, n. 4.

56 Bermejo-Rubio
the fact that it is the closing stages of Jesus’ life that are riddled with violent
overtones. The several sayings on the swords are to be explained as indications
of the leader to his followers to be well prepared for an eventual battle in the
messianic war, as Jesus was expecting an impending final conflict.
In this light, the odd accounts of the events at Gethsemane also make sense.
What Jesus was doing there, at night, surrounded by an entourage of armed
men, is a question that has never been convincingly explained in mainstream
scholarship. If he, however, was preparing his group for the imminent eschato-
logical manifestation of God, it becomes meaningful. Jesus’ counsel to his dis-
ciples to stay awake also becomes intelligible: they had been assigned guard
duty. Although the episode of the arrest remains enigmatic because it has been
tampered with, in all probability Jesus’ followers were collectively ready for
(and involved in) armed resistance, as is shown by Lk. 22.49.196
We cannot know who arrested Jesus (the Romans, the Jews, or a combined
throng),197 but we can easily explain the size and arming of the party sent to
arrest him (it was a massive force, heavily armed with swords: μετὰ μαχαιρῶν)
if the authorities knew in advance that Jesus’ gang was not a harmless group,
and that armed resistance was to be expected; nobody uses a sledgehammer to
crack a nut.198 The force acted at night presumably as a precaution against pos-
sible rebellious activities.
196 Referring to the attack of one of Jesus’ disciples against a member of the arresting
group, George Aichele wonders: ‘Would this happen if Jesus and his followers were
not already a violent group?’ (G. Aichele, ‘Jesus’ Violence’, in G. Aichele and T. Pippin
[eds.], Violence, Utopia and the Kingdom of God: Fantasy and Ideology in the Bible
[London and New York: Routledge, 1998], p. 83). Besides, if the story of Judas’s
betrayal deserves any credit, it makes sense if a coup had been prearranged: ‘Da gab
es etwas zu verraten, da gab es ein Geheimnis, das zu erkaufen lohnte’ (Kautsky,
Ursprung, p. 388).
197 The discrepancy between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics regarding who arrested
Jesus might be explained by the fact that John disposed of reliable information on the
Romans as the main actors, and that Mark—and the others following him—preferred to
drop this embarrassing datum; see P. Winter, On the Trial of Jesus [2nd edn; Berlin: W. de
Gruyter, 1974], p. 66, who surmised that this is more easily explicable ‘if the primary
account had alluded to the presence of members of the Temple Police’. Many scholars
prefer to argue that the mention of the Romans is due to the Fourth Gospel’s tendency to
overstate the importance of Jesus’ opponents, but Winter suggested that this tendency
could be detected even if the Romans were actually responsible for the arrest: ‘It was
more likely a decurio than a tribunus militaris that arrested Jesus’ (On the Trial of Jesus,
p. 42).
198 Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, p. 341.

Whilst Mk 15.3–4 says that the chief priests accused Jesus ‘of many things’,
Lk. 23.2 specifies the charges that were brought forward. Although the evange-
lists and most scholars agree that the allegations are nothing but gross
slander—and they must then proceed to surmise the reasons for it—, there is
a simpler and more plausible explanation: Luke reflected the charges that were
actually made,199 and they were made because Jesus was actually guilty of sedi-
tion.200 Every item in the indictment against Jesus is accordingly true.201
A remarkable feature of the trial (or arraignment) of Jesus before Pilate can
be also explained. Jesus answers in an oblique manner, and obstinately refuses
to make any further response to the accusations made against him. If he had
indeed made himself guilty of seditious actions, the reluctance of this other-
wise eloquent teacher becomes wholly understandable: he had good reason
not to answer to a Roman prefect, as he was well aware that anything he could
say would be used against him. This obstinacy fits the attitude of religiously-
oriented seditionists. Furthermore, Jesus must have expected God’s vindica-
tion until the end.
The responsibility for Jesus’ crucifixion lies with Pilate, who held the impe-
rium.202 From our former survey it should be clear that Jesus could have been
arrested and crucified by the Roman prefect without the chief priests’ inter-
vention,203 because Jesus’ preaching, claims and activities were extremely
199 ‘Tout y est rédactionnel. Et pourtant l’évangéliste tente de ne rien inventer, mais de
recueillir ici les charges portées contre Jésus telles qu’il les trouve dispersées dans les
sources et traditions auxquelles il a accès’ (F. Bovon, L’Évangile selon Luc 19, 28—24, 53
[Genève: Labor et Fides, 2009], p. 307).
200 ‘Jesus was guilty of sedition; he was a patriot who fought against the Roman domination
of his native land’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 204; italics original). It should be
obvious that the claim that Jesus was crucified as a seditionist for good reasons does not
constitute in the least a moral judgment nor a legitimization of the violence carried out
by the Roman Empire; it is just an explanation of a historical event.
201 ‘The charges brought against him, however apologetically handled by the gospel writers,
were in effect true. He had definitely been stirring up the people’ (R.A. Horsley, Jesus and
the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine [2nd edn; Minneapolis,
mn: Fortress, 1993], p. 320).
202 Furthermore, the fact that we face a collective crucifixion enhances the probability that
the responsibility for the events at Golgotha ultimately lies with the Romans.
203 More than a century ago, Maurice Goguel argued that in the primitive tradition the arrest
must have been carried out entirely on the initiative of the Romans. According to this
scholar, the Jewish presence in the tradition becomes understandable if Pilate consulted
the Sanhedrin just as a precautionary measure, in order to make sure that his action
against Jesus would not arouse opposition; see M. Goguel, ‘Juifs et Romains dans l’histoire
de la Passion’, Revue de l’Histoire des religions 62 (1910), pp. 165–82, 295–322, esp. 321.

58 Bermejo-Rubio
relevant to Roman rule. Nevertheless, according to the canonical Gospels, it

was the priests who persuaded Pilate to do the job. Although the alleged
motives (hate, envy, mortal hostility…) are hardly believable—they are in all
probability Christian concoctions—, the idea that the Jewish authorities
played a role in Jesus’ fate is not unreasonable in the light of our hypothesis. If
the Gospel accounts on the responsibility of the Jewish authorities in Jesus’
arrest preserve a hard core of historical memory, their behaviour—which
implied the hard decision of turning a fellow Jew (or a group of Jews) over to
the Romans for execution—is best explained if Jesus did indeed act as a sedi-
tionist: they had eventually become profoundly alarmed about the serious-
ness of the political danger that Jesus and his group constituted, since that
could easily lead to the killing of innocent people by the Romans. The Jewish
authorities had the responsibility of maintaining public order and peace in
Judaea, and therefore had an obligation to co-operate in the maintenance of
the Roman government in their land.204 Therefore, if they took part in Jesus’
arrest, their intervention must have been according to a scenario such as that
contained in Jn 11.47–50, a passage that runs against the Johannine perspective
itself.205 This text is realistic in so far as it assumes the existence of deeply
conflicting attitudes towards Jesus within the authorities,206 and accounts for
The current contention that ‘it is unlikely that Pilate would have taken steps to remove
Jesus’ without the chief priests (J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered [Grand Rapids, mi:
Eerdmans, 2003], p. 786) is, in light of our analyses, wholly unwarranted.
204 This does not imply that the Jewish leaders did not also have their own interests in mind.
What it clearly implies is that reducing their behaviour to just a cynical move is entirely
gratuitous. Of course, what was an obvious duty of the Jewish authorities has allowed the
in malam partem interpretation, both of the Gospel writers and modern scholarship and
theology: ‘No doubt the high-priest and his camp-followers were anxious lest their vested
interests should be adversely affected by complications threatening to arise from
unchecked popular propaganda… Whatever they may have done in order to remain mas-
ters of the situation, there is no need to ascribe exceptional wickedness to them on this
account. Their decision, and subsequent action, can be understood as having been moti-
vated by legitimate anxiety to prevent the people’s affairs from entering upon a course
which threatened to engulf the nation in violence and tragedy’ (Winter, On the Trial of
Jesus, pp. 58–59); ‘Their fears were real, and were justified. Whether their part in the
arrest of Jesus was small or great, they acted from motives they considered to serve the
best interests of the nation—and the best interests, as so often, happened to coincide with
their own’ (Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, p. 59, emphasis original).
205 In fact, the author felt compelled to add the verses 51–52 to counteract and domesticate
the harsh, realistic words of the high-priest as recorded in vv. 48 and 50.
206 The perplexity expressed in 47b (‘What are we to do?’) and the disparaging words
addressed to the other members of the council (‘You know nothing at all; you do not

any move by the authorities not as proof of an intrinsic cruelty or hatred

against Jesus, but as a pragmatic decision, and therefore as the lesser of two
evils. What Jn 11.47–50 implies is that this decision was, from the perspective
of the Jewish authorities, a pre-emptive strike that was unwillingly taken. They
saw exactly the same threat as the Romans saw, and their action—aimed at
forestalling a bloody intervention on a large scale—seems to have been an
exercise in political responsibility.207 The proof that they knew very well what
they—however reluctantly—were doing is that it would have been desper-
ately embarrassing for them to have Jesus found not guilty by Pilate: if they
consented to act against Jesus (and others), it is in all likelihood because they
had very strong reasons for doing so.208
The hypothesis of a seditious Jesus allows us to better understand the prob-
able course of events. On the one hand, the reluctance betrayed by a passage
such as Jn 11.47–50 suggests that, if we accept the Jewish participation in Jesus’
arrest, it might have been their initiative only on a very superficial level,209
because the Jewish authorities’ move might have been, in fact, a reaction to a
understand…’) by Caiaphas in vv. 49–50 clearly convey the existence of a harsh discussion
among the Jewish authorities regarding Jesus and, therefore, seem to point to the proba-
bility that at least some of them had the intention of allowing him to preach and act
undisturbed (‘If we let him go on thus…’: v. 48). The presupposition of the existence of
deeply conflicting attitudes towards Jesus radically denies the Gospel tendency to present
the Jewish authorities in toto as hostile to him; the passage allows us thereby to debunk
the monolithic, manichaean view of the Jewish authorities as a malevolent group moved
by the meanest of motives and unanimously trying to get rid of the good man Jesus.
207 I find it unfortunate that Robert Webb, in his otherwise interesting essay on crucifixion,
does not mention Jn 11.47–50 and does not try to understand the possible motivation of
the Jewish authorities in the arrest of Jesus in the light of their political (and moral)
duties. Although this scholar weighs up other possibilities, he also reproduces the theo-
logical view (which is, in turn, an avatar of the evangelists’ view): ‘Having arrested Jesus,
[the Jewish authorities] examined him and found him guilty of blasphemy and being a
threat to their own position and the temple’ (Webb, ‘The Roman Examination’, p. 740);
‘For Jesus had made claims that the Jewish authorities did consider a threat—Jesus’
claims were an offence to their religious and theological sensibilities, and they were also
a threat to their own authority’ (‘The Roman Examination’, p. 758).
208 As Jn 18.30 states, ‘If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have handed him over’.
209 Paul Winter expressed this aspect with accuracy: ‘We are entitled to deduce from the
words in Jn 11, 48 that the high-priest was acting under compulsion. The extent of such
compulsion cannot be determined. Pilate was worried by the prevalence of disaffec-
tion among the population, and he may have cautioned the high-priest and advised
him to take measures calculated to stem the spread of disloyalty’ (On the Trial of Jesus,
p. 57).

60 Bermejo-Rubio
previous instigation by the Romans.210 The ultimate responsibility for Jesus’

crucifixion lies with Roman power, not only in the immediate and obvious
sense that they crucified him, but also in the sense that they held control over
the country, and therefore they had put the Jewish authorities in the tricky,
even tragic situation of having to quash their own people’s longing for free-
dom, and of having to put any seditionists in their place (by denouncing them),
on pain of a bloodier intervention. On the other hand, this means that if the
Jewish authorities intervened, they did not merely ‘represent him to the
Romans as dangerous’:211 they did not need to, as there is every indication that
Jesus was indeed politically dangerous (and the Romans must have been well
aware of that).
5.3 Jesus’ Ministry

Having accounted for the crucifixion and the last events in Jerusalem, we can
also explain other aspects of Jesus’ former ministry, which are at first glance
striking. For instance, the warnings that following Jesus entailed the danger of
suffering and being persecuted and killed (and more specifically that it implied
taking up the cross) are to be explained precisely because this was the punish-
ment for sedition. The expectancy of suffering and death does not make sense
at all if Jesus’ preaching had been the innocuous message of peace and love
which many scholars claim it was,212 for the simple reason that a message
of peace and love is not threatening for—it is rather welcomed by—the princes
of this world, who like having stability in the societies they rule.213 It is,
210 ‘Whether Pilate knew of Jesus, and whether he was of the opinion that his preaching
contributed to popular unrest, it is impossible to say. If he did, he might have demanded
specifically that the high-priest should take charge of Jesus and put an end to his activi-
ties. If, as is more likely, Pilate’s information about Jewish affairs was of a less definite
character, he would merely have sent a warning to the local authorities instructing them,
in general terms, to “put their house in order”. Was the initiative to act against Jesus taken
directly by Pilate? Or did the governor merely express displeasure with conditions in the
country and insist that something be done about them? There is no answer to this ques-
tion. The report underlying John 11, 47–53 warrants the contention that the governor
demanded of the Sanhedrin proof of its own loyalty to Rome’ (Winter, On the Trial of
Jesus, p. 57).
211 So E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London: scm, 1985), p. 290 (among many others).
212 Likewise, our hypothesis most naturally explains the passages that betoken bellicose
impulses both of Jesus and his disciples. These passages reveal a zeal that is not restrained
to inner, ‘spiritual’ dimensions.
213 As Eisler put it: ‘Warum hätten so harmlose Wanderprediger auch fürchten sollen, von
Römern oder Juden getötet zu werden? Dagegen hatten Boten, die ausgesandt waren, das

however, utterly meaningful insofar as it betrays the clear awareness of the

danger involved in rebellious activities. Jesus and his followers had serious rea-
sons to fear a violent fate.214
The mutual hostility between Jesus and Herod Antipas might not be only
due to the beheading of John the Baptist by the tetrarch. It makes best sense if
Jesus’ message had indeed seditious overtones, and was felt by the pro-Roman
ruler as a political threat—Herod’s reason for wanting to kill Jesus could hardly
be anything other than political. Likewise, the reports that Jesus was obliged to
flee from place to place from the tetrarch and sometimes to conceal himself215
is to be explained in light of his awareness that he posed a real threat to the
pro-Roman ruler.216
A related but independent issue is that of the striking absence of Sepphoris
and Tiberias in the Gospels, a matter that has generated many different expla-
nations. Although this must remain speculative, if Sepphoris and Tiberias’s
absence in the Gospel tradition is not accidental but reflects a programmatic
avoidance, the reason for Jesus’ avoidance of these cities does not seem to have
been that they were Hellenistic and gentile (in terms of religious and ethnic
indicators, archaeology reveals continuity between Galilean villages, such as
Volk zum Verlassen alles Besitzes und zum Auszug in die Wüste aufzurufen…allen Grund
dazu, Verfolgungen jeder Art, ja Gefahr an Leib und Leben zu befürchten’ (Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, pp. 265–66).
214 Incidentally, this also explains the disciples’ flight and Simon Peter’s betrayal in the
Passion accounts: having taken part in a putsch, they all greatly feared suffering the same
awful destiny as his leader.
215 ‘There are indications that Antipas was an active enemy from whom Jesus was compelled
to flee… The Markan, and hence the Synoptic, outline of the career of Jesus can most
naturally be seen as a chase and flight. The itinerary of Jesus can, in its broadest outline,
be accounted for as a flight from Antipas’ (J.B. Tyson, ‘Jesus and Herod Antipas’, jbl 79
[1960], pp. 239–46, here 239–40); H.W. Hoehner, Herod Antipas (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1972), pp. 197–202.
216 The so-called ‘messianic secret’ could be accordingly read in a new light, as Eisler (ΙΗΣΟΥΣ
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, pp. 193–94) remarked. Jesus might have commanded silence in order to
disguise his identity and to avoid his enemies. ‘If Peter’s notion of Messiahship was mod-
elled on someone like King Solomon, then his action in saluting Jesus as the Christ was a
revolutionary, rebellious deed. He was challenging the power of Rome and declaring the
Roman Occupation to be at an end’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 127). ‘The refer-
ence to the term “Christ” in its authentic political sense is unique in the Gospels, and
makes nonsense of the contention that a claim to Christhood could be made the basis of
a religious charge of blasphemy rather than a political charge of subversion’ (Maccoby,
Revolution in Judaea, p. 131).

62 Bermejo-Rubio
Capernaum and Nazareth, and the city of Sepphoris),217 but it might have had
concrete political grounds: they were the capitals and strongholds from which
the pro-Roman tetrarch ruled, where he housed his administrative apparatus,
and where he had most of his troops.218 At least while Jesus did not trust that
God would intervene on his behalf, he would not have willingly put his head in
the lion’s mouth.
The apparently puzzling saying on the tribute (and the whole scene, com-
prising the attempt of Jesus’ hearers to ‘entrap’ him, and their amazed reaction
at the answer) becomes crystal-clear, and the apparent contradiction between
it and Lk. 23.2 is definitely solved, when we simultaneously recognize that
Jesus opposed the payment, and that he was shrewd enough not to let himself
be trapped, by providing an apparently ambivalent, but also a rather clear
answer for those in the know (a case of ‘public transcript’, in Scott’s terminol-
ogy). Therefore, Lk. 23.2 was presumably not slander, but trustworthy informa-
tion about Jesus’ true thoughts on this matter. As it has been often argued, this
opposition to the tribute directly implies a seditious stance.219
Although there is every indication that Jesus made kingly claims and was
not on principle opposed to violence, there are several passages in which he is
presented as rejecting violence and distancing himself from a seditious stance.
For instance, according to Jn 6.15 Jesus rebuts the attempts of the crowd to
make him king; in Lk. 9.51–56 James and John are rebuked for wanting to call
fire down from heaven. These texts can be naturally interpreted in several ways
without resorting to the facile expedients of denying their authenticity or
assuming that they have been tampered with.220 Of course, one should not
drop the material that seems to contradict the inference that Jesus acted as a
217 Miqwaot are found, pork was avoided, stone vessels were present, and burial took place in
rooms with ossuaries. The overwhelming majority of Sepphoris inhabitants were Jews.
See e.g. J.L. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-examination of the Evidence
(Harrisburg, pa: Trinity Press, 2000), pp. 49–51.
218 ‘If Jesus did not avoid Sepphoris for religious, ethnic, or economic reasons, perhaps he did
so on political grounds’ (Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus, p. 137).
219 See Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, pp. 195–201; Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, pp. 345–48;
G. Puente Ojea, El Evangelio de Marcos (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1992), pp. 108–114. See also
Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, pp. 306–317; W.R. Herzog, Jesus, Justice, and the
Reign of God (Louisville, ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), pp. 219–32. As it is
well-known, the overwhelming majority of authors maintain a very different view; see
recently N. Förster, Jesus und die Steuerfrage (Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 2012), who—as
most scholars—overlooks the whole pattern pointing to a seditious Jesus.
220 Unlike other cases that we have surveyed above, there are no apparent traces of tamper-
ing here.

seditionist.221 In light of the hypothesis that Jesus’ engagement in armed resis-

tance seems to have been restricted to the final phase in Jerusalem, one possi-
bility is that those passages reflect a former period. Another possibility is that
they convey a strategic and temporary stance222 (Jesus’ pragmatism is to be
perceived in his flight from Antipas or in his clandestine moves in Jerusalem).223
In fact, this last interpretation makes more sense of the evidence, as it is hard
to believe that popular attempts to make Jesus king took place if Jesus was
preaching a message unconnected to political aspirations, and it is likewise
hard to believe that Jesus’ disciples asked his master about the possibility of
resorting to violence if his master had ruled out violence on principle.224 There
must have been something in his message that prompted his followers to take
such initiatives.
According to Acts, the Pharisee Gamaliel compares Jesus and his movement
with Theudas and Judas the Galilean. This is striking only at first glance. If
Jesus made seditious claims, such a comparison is rather to be expected, since
there was indeed a common denominator. All three of them envisaged the end
of the Roman rule, and all of them were the target of the Romans. As is well-
known, Theudas was a ‘sign-prophet’ ‘claiming to be somebody’; also Jesus
deemed himself to be somebody important in God’s plans, and likewise
expected and promised his followers wonderful deeds. Moreover, Jesus did
indeed oppose the payment of tribute to Rome, presumably in the same line
221 In fact, Cullmann’s claim that the proponents of the hypothesis of a politically revolution-
ary Jesus must drop a certain category of the Gospel sayings which ‘contradict’ their view
(‘Es gibt hierfür ein sehr einfaches Mittel: man verschweigt diejenige, die der These, die
man selber vertritt, widerspricht’: O. Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären seiner Zeit
[2nd edn; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1970]) is unfounded.
222 ‘Or did Jesus deliberately, for practical reasons, distance himself from messianic expecta-
tions, perhaps because he wanted, at least for a time, to avoid controversy or arrest?’ (D.C.
Allison, Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History [Grand Rapids, mi: Baker
Academic, 2010], p. 288).
223 ‘The marked impression we get from chaps. 7 and 8 in Mark is that Jesus is trying to
avoid the crowds of people who flocked to him… But to avoid the crowds is to avoid
notoriety, and to avoid notoriety is to escape from the notice of Herod Antipas’
(Tyson, ‘Jesus and Herod Antipas’, p. 244). In this light, the contention that Jesus’
withdrawal proves his rebuttal of kingship claims (G. Jossa, Gesù e i movimenti di
liberazione della Palestina [Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1980], p. 305) is wholly
unwarranted.
224 See also Brandon, Trial, pp. 126–27. This means that the claim that Lk. 9.51–56 ‘catches the
spirit of Jesus’ (so Allison in R.J. Miller [ed.], The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate [Santa Rosa,
ca: Polebridge, 2001], pp. 99–100) is, to put it mildly, highly unlikely.

64 Bermejo-Rubio
and with the same rationale as Judas.225 Therefore, the view of Jesus as a sedi-
tionist makes sense of a passage written in terms reminiscent of failed revolu-
tionaries or prophets.226
5.4 The Existence of the Testimonium Flavianum

The passage about Jesus and Christians in A.J. XVIII 63–64—the so-called
Testimonium Flavianum—is one of the most hotly-debated issues of
Josephus’s scholarship. I find the current view that an authentic core goes
back to Josephus, although it has been partially interpolated, most plausible:
the hypothesis that Christians slightly retouched the text in a more favour-
able direction seems to be the simplest solution.227 But even if we align our-
selves with the majority, a point of disagreement is to be found in the
assessment of the nature of the alleged original text. Although a number of
scholars of different ideological background (Théodore Reinach, Samuel
Brandon, Ernst Bammel, Morton Smith, Graham Twelftree, Graham Stanton)
have asserted that Josephus mentioned Jesus unfavourably, nowadays the
claim that Josephus’s passage was originally ‘neutral’ is being repeated time
and again in many reference works.228 Elsewhere I have systematically sur-
veyed the arguments supporting the claim that the neutral reconstruction is
the better explanation of the passage and I have come to the conclusion that
225 The idea that Jesus clung to the conviction of Yahweh’s lordship finds support in several
sayings; see Mk 12.29, Mt. 4.10 (Lk. 4.8) and Mt. 6.24 (=Lk. 16.13).
226 It seems highly unlikely that any Christian would want to advance a modelling of the
Jesus story after the pattern of these figures: ‘Such a characterization would certainly have
a place in anti-Christian polemic, but it is unlikely that it would be invented out of whole
cloth, with no basis in the historical memory of the people to whom the polemic would
be directed… Luke’s comparison of Jesus with Theudas and Judas the Galilean may con-
stitute evidence that there indeed were strong generic similarities’ (J.A. Trumbower, ‘The
Historical Jesus and the Speech of Gamaliel [Acts 5:35–39]’, nts 39 [1993], pp. 500–517,
here 509).
227 See L.H. Feldman, Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Books XVIII-XIX (lcl, 433, Cambridge, ma:
Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 49, n. b.
228 See e.g. G. Vermes, ‘The Jesus Notice of Josephus Re-Examined’, jjs 38 (1987), pp. 1–10 at 10;
J.P. Meier, ‘Jesus in Josephus: A Modest Proposal’, cbq 52 (1990), pp. 72–103, esp. 87;
R. Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave (2 vols.; New York:
Doubleday, 1994), II, pp. 373–76; G. Theissen and A. Merz, Der historische Jesus. Ein
Lehrbuch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), p. 82; R.E. Van Voorst, Jesus
Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, mi:
Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 81–104; Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 141.

those arguments are, at best, unsound, and, at worst, nothing but

paralogisms.229
On the one hand, it is extremely hard to believe that a neutral assessment of
Jesus by Josephus is the more likely possibility. It is well known that the histo-
rian did not feel any sympathy for popular messianic claimants. Now, we are
virtually sure that he knew the messianic claims made by and about Jesus, 230
and also the frequent connection between this claim and political subversion,
all the more so because Josephus mentions Jesus’ crucifixion by Pilate. This
must have been enough for Josephus to take a critical stance towards Jesus (all
the more so if the phrase about the joint responsibility of Jewish leaders along
with Pilate is accepted as genuine). At the very least, he must have considered
him to be just one more deluded visionary in a series of similar men. On the
other hand, and more importantly, several sound arguments support the case
that the original text must have been at least implicitly negative towards Jesus.
To start with, quite a few phrases, single words or whole sentences in the extant
text—and in the alleged original passage, such as reconstructed by the propo-
nents of a ‘neutral’ text—have negative overtones. Moreover, the existence of
the textual variant Ἰησοῦς τις (‘a certain Jesus’), with its potentially disparaging
meaning, is probably to be considered as original. Finally, the Testimonium is
set in a sequence of events under Pilate whose term in office is reported as a
series of disturbances. The conclusion we can draw from all this is that
Josephus’s stance towards Jesus is to be labelled as, at least, somewhat
negative.
Our former analyses allow us now to understand the basic issues related to
the Testimonium. First, we can best explain its actual existence: Josephus
wrote a report about Jesus within a series of disturbances because he viewed
him as a kind of seditionist; this is not at all surprising if Jesus—as I have
argued above—was indeed involved in seditious ideology and activities.
Secondly, we can account for the fact that the original passage was tampered
with by Christian scribes: the simplest and most probable explanation for the
text having been edited is not that it was neutral, but rather that the Christian
229 See F. Bermejo-Rubio, ‘Was the Hypothetical Vorlage of the Testimonium Flavianum a
“Neutral” Text? Challenging the Common Wisdom on Antiquitates Judaicae XVIII 63–64’,
jsj 45 (2014), pp. 326–65. Although John Meier’s article is approvingly cited by many
scholars, his approach is severely flawed; see F. Bermejo-Rubio, ‘La naturaleza del texto
original del Testimonium Flavianum. Una crítica de la propuesta de John P. Meier’, Estudios
Bíblicos 72 (2014), pp. 257–92.
230 Even if Josephus did not mention the term ‘Christ’, he knew his messianic claims. This can
be inferred from A.J. XX 200 and from his use of the term Χριστιανοί in A.J. XVIII 64.

66 Bermejo-Rubio
interpolator(s) did not like what (t)he(y) found, because (t)he(y) found it dis-
turbing; and (t)he(y) found it disturbing because the original text somehow
presented the Galilean as a seditious figure. Thirdly, we can counter a frequent
objection levelled by the proponents of a ‘neutral text’, namely, that if the origi-
nal text had displayed a critical view of Jesus, it would not have been pre-
served.231 To start with, perhaps Josephus’s denunciation of Jesus and his
movement was not as brazen as some have argued.232 But even if we assume a
more negative portrayal, there are several explanations for the fact that
Christians did not get rid of such a text. For instance, it is not unreasonable to
surmise that, just as a favourite procedure used to explain away the seditious
material in the Gospels has been to deem it the result of a sad misunderstand-
ing, a Christian reader of Josephus might have interpreted his portrayal of
Jesus as an anti-Roman rebel not as—to use Vermes’s words—‘wicked slander’,
but just as misconception: the outcome of the tragic misinterpretation of a
purely spiritual message. In this light, we can better understand that Christian
readers or copyists would not have felt obliged to dispense with the passage,
but simply to tamper with it.
5.5 A Unifying Explanation of the Evidence

Once one approaches the Gospel stories with the hypothesis that Jesus was
somehow involved in anti-Roman resistance and hoped for liberation from the
Roman yoke, much that otherwise has no good explanation falls into place and
indeed becomes almost self-evident. As I have argued above, a lot of Gospel
material whose presence would be otherwise striking can be explained, to the
extent that many disjointed items become the pieces of a puzzle, and can be
finally understood in a simple and unifying way. Of course, many pieces are
missing, so the puzzle cannot be completed, but at least the figure formed by
the remaining pieces can be reasonably glimpsed.
231 Vermes, ‘The Jesus Notice of Josephus Re-Examined’, p. 10: ‘If Josephus had included a
genuine anti-Christian statement in Antiquities, it would have simply been deleted and
not emended’; Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament, pp. 95–96.
232 There is no ground for accepting the maximalist reconstructions by R. Eisler and
W. Bienert. Perhaps the original text was only ‘slightly derogatory’: G. Twelftree, ‘Jesus in
Jewish Traditions’, in D. Wenham (ed.), Gospel Perspectives. V: The Jesus Tradition Outside
the Gospels (Sheffield: jsot Press, 1985), pp. 289–342, here 308. This might be all the more
probable if Josephus knew that Jesus had not organized a kind of large-scale war against
the Romans: ‘Jesus’s insurrection was a very minor affair compared with the serious
Zealot risings which occurred in the same period’ (Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, p. 199).

The view we have sketched above is not only the simplest explanation of the
whole evidence, but it might also better explain several further facts. First, if
Jesus was not a consistent guerrilla-fighter, but rather an apocalyptic visionary
involved in armed resistance only in the final stage of his life, it becomes easier
to understand that the passages pointing to violence and weaponry are mainly
found in the episodes framing the last stay in Jerusalem.233
Secondly, leaving aside the fact that unexpected shifts and paradoxical rein-
terpretations are not uncommon in the history of religions, Jesus’ multifaceted
personality helps us better understand how his disciples subsequently could
form a messianic movement which was not based on the hope of military vic-
tory. This would have been much easier if the kernel of Jesus’ ministry was not
so much incitement to armed resistance as preaching of the impending king-
dom of God and related ethical teaching.234 After all, Jesus is also remembered
in the Gospels as an original parable-teller, a gifted exorcist and a spiritual
master.
Thirdly, the work of the evangelists is psychologically all the more plausible
if they did not need to fully replace the story of a warrior with that of a preacher,
but rather to adapt a story about a preacher with seditious tendencies through
some convenient changes. This allows us to sort out the frequent objection
that the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus would have required a complete revi-
sion of the Jesus tradition.235 This is not so, and such a claim entails exaggera-
tion which is close to caricature. Given that Jesus was a complex figure, and
that much of his statements and actions have nothing to do (at least directly)
with sedition, the transmitters of the tradition did not need to tamper with all
the material. The hypothesis only requires a partial rewriting or adjustment of
the tradition.
233 On the possibility of a shift of mind in Jesus, see infra, section 7.2.

234 ‘It might be an impression of this kind which contributed after his death to the disciples’
ready abandonment of political projects, and to their adoption, in later times, of the
doctrine that his kingdom was not of this world’ (Ch. C. Hennell, An Inquiry Concerning
the Origin of Christianity [2nd edn; London: T. Allman, 1841], p. 425). See also G.W.
Buchanan, Jesus: The King and His Kingdom (Macon, ga: Mercer University Press, 1984),
p. 251.
235 For instance, Hans Windisch stated that Kautsky’s view ‘die Annahme einer geradezu
ungeheuerlichen Umwälzung der evangelischen Christusanschauung erfordert’ (H. Windisch,
Der messianische Krieg und das Urchristentum [Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 1909], p. 44);
‘The theory is rendered exceedingly difficult in that it requires a wholesale change by
Jesus’ disciples in a more positive direction and a wholesale rewriting of the Jesus tradi-
tion’ (K.R. Snodgrass, ‘The Temple Incident’, in Bock and Webb [eds.], Key Events in the Life
of the Historical Jesus, p. 464).

68 Bermejo-Rubio
A comprehensive figure of Jesus is thereby obtained. This explanatory power

of the hypothesis is a most compelling reason for any independent historian to
integrate the seditious aspects in their reconstruction of Jesus. The historian’s
true task is to tell the story of Jesus in a way that illuminates the memories
about him. The many traces pointing to a certain involvement of Jesus and his
first followers in an anti-Roman stance cannot be erased, not only because
they are embedded in the canonical Gospels: its erasing prevents us from
understanding the evidence and throws us, as we will see, into a morass of
puzzlement.
6 The Hermeneutical Impotence of the Alternative Hypotheses
While if we suppose that Jesus was somehow actively and directly involved in
anti-Roman activities the whole evidence becomes intelligible and meaning-
ful, the rejection of the hypothesis turns that same evidence into something
desperately enigmatic, not to say simply absurd: we would have sources about
a pacific preacher which ascribe to him words and deeds crawling with politi-
cal and violent overtones.
In fact, a further argument in favour of a seditionist Jesus lies in the inabil-
ity of alternative attempts to explain away the evidence. This is accounted
for in standard scholarship by following one of three different paths (or a
combination of them). First, the pattern pointing at an anti-Roman Jesus is
simply overlooked; too often, only a small part of its items are cited or dis-
cussed, so that its strength goes unnoticed.236 Secondly, the existence of the
pattern is (at least partially) taken into account, but the historicity of its
items is denied.237 Thirdly, an analysis of each passage is carried out in order
to prove that their apparent meaning must be replaced by another
interpretation.
In short, scholars denying that Jesus was a seditionist make the following
three different (and mutually contradictory) claims: (a) there is no evidence
(or not enough) supporting that hypothesis; (b) there is evidence, but it is not
reliable; (c) there is evidence, and it is reliable, but it must be interpreted
otherwise. Incidentally, this procedure recalls the one exposed by Sigmund
236 ‘There is little if anything in the Gospel portrait of Jesus that accords with the Jewish
expectation of a militant messiah’ (J.J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of
the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Ancient Literature [New York: Doubleday, 1995], p. 204).
237 E.g. Catchpole (‘The “Triumphal” Entry’, pp. 328–30) questions the historicity of the tri-
umphal entry, of the titulus (Mk 15.26), and the passage of Mk 15.2.

Freud in The Wit and its Relation to Unconscious: A borrows a copper kettle
from B and after he had returned it is sued by B because the kettle now has a
big hole in it which makes it unusable. A’s defence is: ‘Firstly, I never bor-
rowed a kettle from B at all; secondly, the kettle had a hole in it already when
I got it from him; and thirdly, I gave him back the kettle undamaged’. As Freud
observes, each separate protest is good by itself, but taken together they
exclude each other.238 By objecting to the seditious Jesus, similar procedures
are at work.
6.1 A Revolutionary Jesus…but not that Revolutionary

Admittedly, in the last decades, the question of the political dimension of
Jesus’ ministry is only rarely ignored in scholarly works, and phrases such as
‘Jesus and politics’ or ‘the political Jesus’ are found everywhere.239 After so
much noise on this issue, it would be superfluous to criticize approaches not
seriously taking this aspect into consideration.240 What is not superfluous is to
reveal the lack of consequence and rigour of many works aiming at dealing
with the political Jesus, as far as they use an unrealistic notion of ‘politics’ and/
or blithely overlook much of the available evidence.241 The unsurprising result
is that the image of Jesus that most scholars offer largely coheres with the con-
ventional view, which has nothing to do with a truly seditious stance,242 and
238 ‘Jede einzelne Einrede ist für sich gut, zusammengenommen aber schliessen sie einander
aus… Man kann auch sagen: A. setzt das “und” an die Stelle, an der nur ein “entweder—
oder” möglich ist’ (S. Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten [Leipzig and
Wien: Franz Deuticke, 1905], p. 48).
239 ‘Any [such] serious effort at hypothetical reconstruction does move toward taking more
seriously the economic-political threat Jesus posed to the Romans than does the tradi-
tional ecclesiastical interpretation’ (J.H. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster
[Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 1972], p. 50).
240 Such as that of those stating that Jesus’ preaching ‘ganz und gar unpolitisch war’
(R. Laufen, Die Doppelüberlieferungen der Logienquelle und des Markusevangeliums
[Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1980], p. 309).
241 See supra, section 4.1.2.
242 Christopher Bryan distinguishes four options: (1) ‘Acceptance of and full cooperation
with Roman rule’; (2) ‘Acceptance of Roman rule, coupled with a willingness on occasion
to question or even challenge nonviolently the justice or appropriateness of its actions’;
(3) ‘Nonviolent rejection of Roman rule’; (4) ‘Violent rejection or Roman rule’ (C. Bryan,
Render to Caesar: Jesus, the Early Church, and the Roman Superpower [Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005], p. 34). According to this author—who conveniently overlooks
much evidence and most pertinent bibliography—‘Jesus’ words and works point to the
second of our four options’ (p. 42).

70 Bermejo-Rubio
assumes on principle that Jesus’ attitude towards the Empire was consistently
nonviolent.243
A good example is that of Otto Betz, who argued that concepts and language
coming from the Hebrew tradition of Holy War may be traced in the teaching
of Jesus.244 According to this scholar, however, the envisaged enemies were not
the Romans, but the embattled forces of Belial, and the warfare would be
exclusively spiritual.245 In light of the evidence, alas, it seems unlikely and
strained that every reference to violence, conflicts and swords in the Gospels is
to be seen as having an ultimate demoniacal reference (and, as far as one can
ascertain, Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers, not by evil cosmic powers). At
the end of his article, Betz rightly states that several Gospel texts (Lk. 22.36, 38;
Mk 15.34 par.) contradict the evangelists’ view of a Jesus willingly going to
death, but these passages are left unexplained, and Betz limits himself to say
that Jesus ‘was more than a Theudas’.246
Since the existence of seditious material in Jesus’ tradition cannot be easily
denied, some scholars recognize it.247 According to them, however, this is
merely a mistaken impression: only at first glance and on the surface could
Jesus and his disciples be taken as seditionists.248 A very widespread
243 ‘It belongs to the nature of the new order that, though it condemns and displaces the old,
it does not do so with the arms of the old’ (Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, p. 43). Jesus ‘never
condoned violence or participated in it’ (W. Klassen, ‘Jesus and the Zealot Option’,
Canadian Journal of Theology 16 [1970], p. 21).
244 Otto Betz, ‘Jesu Heiliger Krieg’, NovT 2 (1957), pp. 116–37. He cites e.g. Mt. 11.12/Lk. 16.16;
Mt. 10.34.
245 Jesus ‘ist ein Kämpfer für das Gottesreich, der über dessen Kraft verfügt, namlich über Gottes
heiligen Geist’ (Betz, ‘Jesu Heiliger Krieg’, p. 126); ‘Jesus führt mit Wort und Tat den heiligen
Krieg um die Verteidigung und Heraufführung der Gottesherrschaft’ (pp. 128–29); ‘Und doch
führt Jesus seinen heiligen Krieg anders. Gewiss kann die Gottesherrschaft nicht völlig aufg-
erichtet werden, solange heidnische Machthaber die Welt regieren, und wie unlöslich
religiöser und politischer Eifer miteinander verbunden sind, beweisen die Makkabäerkriege…
Aber…Jesus kämpft nicht gegen die Starken, sondern gegen den Starken’ (pp. 133–34).
246 Betz, ‘Jesu Heiliger Krieg’, p. 136 (‘mehr war als ein Theudas’).
247 Thus, Cullmann stated that the judgment that Jesus belonged to resistance ‘scheint sich
auf den ersten Blick um so mehr aufzudrängen, als Lehre und Leben Jesu tatsächlich
gewisse unbestreitbar zelotische Züge aufweisen’ (Jesus und die Revolutionären, p. 18); ‘The
total religious outlook of the Zealots comes very close to that of Jesus himself and there is
every reason to believe that many elements of the Zealot theology must have held some
attraction to him at various points in his life’ (Klassen, ‘Jesus and the Zealot Option’, p. 20).
248 ‘Von außen gesehen sein und seiner Jünger Auftreten im Sinne des Zelotentums mißver-
standen werden konnte’ (Cullmann, Der Staat im Neuen Testament [2nd edn; Tübingen:
Mohr–Siebeck, 1961], p. 17, my italics).

interpretation is that the messianic idea and the political ambitions involved
in it were just a ‘temptation’ that Jesus had to reject.249 This patently apologetic
device sometimes even assumes that Jesus anachronistically separated reli-
gion from politics.250 In fact, in light of the evidence we should conclude that,
if this was indeed a ‘temptation’ for him, then he yielded to it.
The flawed character of the current scholarly surveys of the political
aspects of Jesus is also visible in their inconsequential treatment of evi-
dence. A remarkable case is that of Paul Winter. In his valuable On the Trial
of Jesus, the Jewish scholar carried out a classic analysis in which he unveiled
the anti-Jewish bias in the Passion accounts, and perceptively analysed a
good number of Gospel passages. He realized the nationalistic connotations
of some of Jesus’ sayings,251 and noted the embellishment and redrafting of
key passages by the evangelists.252 Furthermore, he argued that Jesus was
arrested by Roman military personnel for political reasons,253 that ‘the
movement he initiated doubtless possessed political implications’, that
‘Jesus was crucified on the ground of a charge of tumult or sedition’, that ‘it
is plain that Jesus did not dissociate himself from people who belonged to
revolutionary sections of the population’, that ‘the little group that gathered
249 See e.g. Windisch, Der messianische Krieg, p. 39; S. Mowinckel, He That Cometh: The
Messiah Concept in the Old Testament and in Later Judaism (Nashville, tn: Abingdon,
1955), p. 450; ‘Jesus die politische Messiasauffassung immer als eine Versuchung, und zwar
als seine besondere Versuchung angesehen hat’ (Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären,
pp. 56–57, original emphasis); ‘Wir verstehen aber auch, daß das Zelotenideal für Jesus
die eigentliche Versuchung war, von Anfang an’ (Cullmann, Staat, p. 12); M. Hengel, War
Jesus Revolutionär? (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1970), p. 20; W.D. Davies, The Gospel and the
Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1994; orig. edn 1974), p. 344 and n. 23.
250 ‘In der jüdischen Auffassung vom Messiaskönig sind Glaube und Politik eng miteinander
verbunden. Darin besteht gerade die Versuchung’ (Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären,
p. 59). This anachronistic view is attributed to Jesus by other scholars, for instance regard-
ing Jesus’ statements in Mark 12: ‘The answer provokes surprise because Jesus sepa
rates religion and politics, two spheres that were closely connected within Jewish history’
(M. I. Aguilar, ‘The Archaeology of Memory and the Issue of Colonialism: Mimesis and the
Controversial Tribute to Caesar in Mark 12:13–17’, btb 35 [2005], pp. 60–66, here 63).
251 Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, pp. 193–94.
252 E.g. on Jn 11.47–53, Winter remarked that the effort of rephrasing and adjusting the origi-
nal account succeeded in almost completely obscuring the import of this passage.
‘Complete elucidation of the facts concerning the circumstances under which the arrest
of Jesus took place is impossible. The matter soon became a theme for legendary elabora-
tions’ (Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, p. 66).
253 Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, p. 192.

72 Bermejo-Rubio
around Jesus clearly had political-revolutionary tendencies’, and that the

description of the triumphal entry ‘in each of the four Gospels has the fea-
tures of a political demonstration’.254 Despite all this, and despite having
recognized that ‘the New Testament contains indications of political aspira-
tions for national independence, harboured among early followers of Jesus,
and there are reasons for thinking that some expression of such aspirations
occurred already in the life of Jesus’,255 Winter puzzlingly ends up by stating
that ‘the evidence, fragmentary though it is, affords no solid basis for the
view that he was engaged in any political activities of a subversive charac-
ter’.256 Significantly, the blatant inconsequence and lack of plausibility of
such a reconstruction was perceived and candidly expressed by Winter him-
self: ‘An element of contradiction may seem to be involved in our general
argumentation’.257 In the end, contradiction is not only perceived: it actu-
ally undermines his analysis.
Another telling example of scholarly inconsequence is that of Richard
Horsley. This scholar has admittedly made serious efforts to take into account
the political factor in Jesus’ story: he accepts that Jesus’ proclamation of the
kingdom envisaged a social renewal of Israel’s peasant villages which involved
a radical condemnation of Roman rule,258 makes a convincing survey of the
passage on the tribute,259 applies to the Gospels the research on the art of
political disguise which often occurs in heavily dominated peoples,260 and
terms Jesus a ‘revolutionary’, thereby putting into question the evangelists’
version of Jesus’ story and obtaining valuable results. Nonetheless, when it
comes to an assessment of the topic of violence in Jesus’ fate, his analysis
shows disappointing shortcomings. First, Horsley recognizes that there is
much material suggesting ‘that Jesus and his movement were engaged not
254 Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, resp. pp. 193, 194, 196, 198. In the wake of W. Farmer, Winter
avows that the use of palm branches in the triumphal entry ‘would signify the celebration
of victory over the pagan oppressor’ (On the Trial of Jesus, p. 199).
256 Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, p. 206. ‘This does not in any way mean that he himself put
forward political claims’ (p. 193).
258 See e.g. R.A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder
(Minneapolis, mn: Fortress, 2003), p. 104.
259 Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, pp. 306–317.
260 See R. Horsley (ed.), Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance: Applying the Work of
James C. Scott to Jesus and Paul (Leiden: Brill, 2004). See also R.A. Horsley, ‘“By the Finger
of God”: Jesus and Imperial Violence’, in S. Matthews and E.L. Gibson (eds.), Violence in the
New Testament (London: T&T Clark, 2005), pp. 51–80.

simply in resistance but in a more serious revolt of some sort against the
established order in Palestine’,261 but instead of drawing the consequences, he
adds that ‘there is no evidence that Jesus himself advocated, let alone orga-
nized, the kind of armed rebellion that would have been necessary to free the
society from the military-political power of the Roman empire’.262 Horsley
does not seem to realize that, even if Jesus did not make a general call to arms,
this would not imply that he did not advocate some kind of violence.263
Secondly, one can assert that there is no evidence for some kind of armed
activity only if one drops from the analysis, as Horsley does, passages such as
Mk 14.47 and par., Lk. 22.36, 38 and Lk. 22.49 (and if one overlooks the fact that
a part of the evidence contained in the Gospels has been tampered with and/
or dropped). Thirdly, Horsley suffers not only from ambivalence,264 but
he also indulges in what appear to be serious inconsistencies.265 His attempt
to deny at all costs Jesus’ involvement in armed resistance makes his work
261 Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, p. 321. See also ‘Jesus’ actions and prophecies,
especially those directed against the ruling institutions of his society, suggest that he was
indeed mounting a more serious opposition than a mere protest… He had definitely been
stirring up the people’. The expression ‘a more serious revolt’ is used elsewhere on pp. 321
and 322 (see infra).
262 Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, p. 321. It is true that Jesus ‘was confident that God
was imminently to complete the restoration of Israel and judge the institutions that
maintained injustice’ (p. 321), but such a confidence does not prevent—as Qumran’s
hopes show—that one could be ready to help God as much as possible, or simply to show
their commitment to God.
263 See above, section 4.2.
264 Elsewhere, Horsley states that ‘Jesus of Nazareth belongs in the same context with and
stands shoulder to shoulder with these other leaders of movements among the Judean
and Galilean people, and pursues the same general agenda in parallel paths: indepen-
dence from Roman imperial rule’ (Horsley, Jesus and Empire, p. 104). On Horsley’s ambiva-
lence regarding violence, see Bryan, Render to Caesar, pp. 53–54.
265 For instance: (1) On the one hand, he acknowledges that ‘Jesus is portrayed as using
moderate violence against property in the Temple demonstration. And he apparently
announced a good deal of imminent divine violence’ (Jesus and the Spiral of Violence,
pp. 318–19); on the other hand, he states: ‘Jesus himself did not advocate or engage in
violent actions’ (p. 322); (2) He asserts that ‘Jesus and his followers understood their oppo-
sition in terms of a protest or resistance for which the individuals would be vindicated by
God, but not in terms of its being a serious revolt’ (p. 320), whilst on the next page he
contradicts himself: ‘Jesus and his movement were engaged not simply in resistance but
in a more serious revolt of some sort against the established order in Palestine’ (p. 321).
But you can’t have your cake and eat it!

74 Bermejo-Rubio
ultimately fail.266 And this is, unfortunately, just an example of a very wide-
spread problem.267
There seems to be an insurmountable taboo in current scholarship: that of
accepting that Jesus was involved in some form of violent resistance to
Rome.268 Although some scholars have arrived at this threshold, they refuse to
step across, as if they did not like what they were going to find at the other
side. Unfortunately, this odd reluctance to face the evidence prevents most
authors from providing us with a compelling explanation of Jesus’ life and
death.
6.2 How Not to Explain Jesus’ Crucifixion, or ‘Everything Goes’

The widespread view of Jesus in the field as a harmless and peaceful man turns
the well-attested fact of the crucifixion into an unfathomable conundrum. In
fact, the terminology labelling Jesus’ death ‘a puzzle’, ‘an enigma’, ‘a mystery’, is
all-pervasive.269 The significant thing, of course, is that the conundrum
266 See also R. Horsley, ‘Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine’, jshj 8 (2010), pp. 99–145,
esp. 143–44; idem, The Prophet Jesus and the Renewal of Israel: Moving Beyond a Diversionary
Debate (Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 2012), p. 146 (the movement of renewal and resis-
tance generated by Jesus ‘was not as visibly disruptive as the movements led by Theudas or
other popular prophets’); although ‘his renewal of Israel was clearly in opposition to the
rulers, and was threatening to the Roman imperial order’, ‘the sources give no indication
whatever that Jesus was somehow leading a rebellion’ (The Prophet Jesus, p. 156).
267 In a recent book, Douglas Oakman states that Jesus opposed payment of tribute and asserts
that his message ‘was a worldly engaged politics of resistance’ (D.E. Oakman, The Political
Aims of Jesus [Minneapolis, mn: Fortress, 2012], p. 131), but at the same time he denies that
Jesus deemed himself to be a messiah and an apocalyptic prophet, avoids any discussion of
the passages concerning swords, and declares outdated ‘the related views (such as
Brandon’s) promoting Jesus’ association with Judean nationalism or zealotism’ (p. 132).
Another strategy consists in recognizing that many of Jesus’ words and deeds are unmistak-
ably political, but at the same time asserting that he altered how politics should be prac-
tised through a radical redefinition by means of a social praxis of self-abnegation, instead of
self-promotion. See e.g. M.E. Moore, Kenotic Politics: The Reconfiguration of Power in Jesus’
Political Praxis (London and New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013); leaving aside the over-
confidence of this author in the historical reliability of the Gospel material, he focuses his
attention on Mk 10.32–45, not even taking into account the probable rhetorical or circum-
stantial meaning of Mk 10.43–44 (for instance, that it is just an ad hoc pronouncement to
counteract the will for power of some too ambitious disciples) and other passages.
268 ‘Dem Widerstand ist eine Grenze gesetzt. Sie befindet sich genau dort, wo er sich in
gewaltsame Revolte verwandelt’ (Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären, p. 69).
269 ‘[T]he starkest, most disturbing, and most central of all the enigmas that Jesus posed and
was’ (J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew. III. Companions and Competitors [New York: Doubleday,

remains only as far as the seditious hypothesis is repressed and rejected.270 To

discard the simplest explanation leads scholars to endorse the most convo-
luted ones.
A typical ‘explanation’ of Jesus’ crucifixion is that he made a decisive break
with Judaism: by advocating a superior authority and God’s grace, he had an
open conflict with Jewish legalism. Jesus would have set himself above the Law
and, accordingly, outside Judaism,271 thereby evoking the open hatred and hos-
tility of the Jewish authorities, who sought to kill him.272 Therefore, no action
by Jesus is necessary to explain his death, but only his spiritual stance.
The tendency in the Gospels to shift the blame of the crucifixion onto the
Jews finds wide echo in modern scholarship. In an attempt to uphold the his-
torical character of the Markan and Matthaean accounts of the Sanhedrin’s
night session at which a capital sentence is pronounced upon Jesus, some
Christian scholars have claimed that crucifixion was an established death
penalty among Jews.273 Relying on the work of former authors (G. Möbius,
A. Merx), E. Bammel argues that Jesus was crucified by Jews,274 whereas the
other two men of the group were crucified by the Romans!275
2001], p. 646); J.B. Green, ‘Crucifixion’, in M. Bockmuehl (ed.), The Cambridge Companion
to Jesus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 87–101, esp. 88–89.
270 ‘Die Hinrichtung Jesu, die wohl begreiflich wird, wenn er ein Rebell war, bleibt nun ein
völlig unverständlicher Akt sinnloser Bösheit’ (Kautsky, Ursprung, p. 389).
271 ‘Der Jude, der tut, was hier geschieht, hat sich aus dem Verband des Judentums gelöst’
(E. Käsemann, ‘Das Problem des historischen Jesus’, in idem, Exegetische Versuche und
Besinnungen [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970], I, pp. 187–214, here 206). See
also D.R. Catchpole, ‘The Problem of the Historicity of the Sanhedrin Trial’, in E. Bammel
(ed.), The Trial of Jesus (London: scm, 1970), pp. 47–65, esp. 51.
272 Käsemann, for instance, repeatedly refers to ‘der Haß der jüdischen Frommen’
(E. Käsemann, ‘Sackgassen im Streit um den historischen Jesus’, in idem, Exegetische
Versuche, II, pp. 31–68, here 56).
273 E. Stauffer, Jerusalem und Rom im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (Bern: Francke, 1957), pp. 123–25;
E. Bammel, ‘Crucifixion as a Punishment in Palestine’, in Bammel (ed.), The Trial of Jesus,
p. 161–65.
274 ‘A scrutiny yields the result that the main traits of the pieces of evidence point rather to a
Jewish execution than to a Roman one’ (E. Bammel, ‘The Trial before Pilate’, in Bammel
and Moule [eds.], Jesus and the Politics of his Day, p. 445). ‘Another way to link the picture
of the execution directly with the findings about the trial would be to assume that the
Sanhedrin, responsible for the execution, borrowed Pilate’s officers and soldiers to per-
form the execution, since the Romans had in any case two others to execute’ (‘The Trial
before Pilate’, p. 439).
275 Bammel, ‘The Trial before Pilate’, p. 443.

76 Bermejo-Rubio
Many scholars explain away the reports of Jesus being executed by the
Romans as a political insurrectionist and the presence of the titulus crucis by
interpreting them as the result of a misunderstanding by the Roman power and
a (conscious) denunciation on a false charge by the Jewish authorities.276
According to this view, Jesus was not an actual threat for the Romans (just as
the Baptist had not been a real threat for Antipas), but was only perceived to be
such.277
The idea of a misunderstanding is often accompanied by repeating the
‘explanation’ provided by the evangelists themselves: it was mainly Jewish
pressure that led the Roman governor to kill Jesus, who had committed some
religious offence.278 The Jewish authorities considered him blasphemous,279
but what they anathematized as blasphemy they described to the Romans as
rebellion against the emperor, presenting Jesus as guilty of insurrection. In
other words, the members of the Sanhedrin decided to restate the charges
against Jesus in order to make sure that Jesus would be effectively sentenced by
276 See e.g. G. Bornkamm, Jesus von Nazareth (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1956), p. 151;
‘Justizirrtum’ (Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären, p. 51); ‘Im Hinblick auf die römische
Besatzungsmacht darf man von einem politischen Mißverständnis im unmittelbaren
Sinn reden’ (H.-W. Kuhn, ‘Die Kreuzesstrafe während der frühen Kaiserzeit. Ihre
Wirklichkeit und Wertung in der Umwelt des Christentums’, anrw 25.1 [Berlin and New
York: Walter de Gruyter, 1982], pp. 648–793, here p. 735); R. Bultmann, ‘Das Verhältnis der
urchristlichen Christusbotschaft zum historischen Jesus’, in idem, Exegetica. Aufsätze zur
Erforschung des Neuen Testaments (ed. E. Dinkler; Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 1967), p. 453;
M.J. Wilkins, ‘Peter’s Declaration Concerning Jesus’ Identity in Caesarea Philippi’, in Bock
and Webb (eds.), Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus, pp. 293–381, esp. 348: ‘misun-
derstood by the common people, the religious authorities, and the political and military
regime to the extent that it resulted in the execution’.
277 ‘Jesus, armed with nothing but wit, wisdom, and an absurd claim concerning the temple
was perceived as a threat to the power structure in Jerusalem… Jesus would be executed
because in politics, perception is reality’ (A. Le Donne, Historical Jesus: What Can We
Know and How Can We Know it? [Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 2011], pp. 131–32).
278 Ferdinand Hahn, for instance, after having stated that ‘Jesus als ein angeblicher
Messiasprätendent hingerichtet wurde’, ends his essay by contending: ‘Ausschlaggebend
ist jedenfalls, dass er wegen eines religiösen Vergehens hingerichtet wurde’ (F. Hahn,
‘Methodologische Überlegungen zur Rückfrage nach Jesus’, in K. Kertelge [ed.], Rückfrage
nach Jesus: Zur Methodik und Bedeutung der Frage nach dem historischen Jesus [Freiburg:
Herder, 1974], pp. 11–77, here p. 42).
279 See e.g. A. Brent, A Political History of Early Christianity (London and New York: T&T Clark,
2009), p. 31. See also Bryan, Render to Caesar, p. 59 (‘the Sanhedrin, believing that God’s
honor required the death of the deceiver, took Jesus before Pilate’); Brown, The Death of
the Messiah, I, p. 547.

Pilate.280 The Gospel myth of the ‘hatred’ against Jesus is repeated, although
usually in a milder, less blatant form.281
Dependence on the Gospels, particularly on Mark, is also a feature of one
of the most widespread ‘explanations’ of Jesus’ death, seeing the immediate
cause of that death in the demonstration against the Temple, which would
have persuaded the Jewish leaders that the Galilean should not be allowed
to create further trouble.282 This is, however, not compelling.283 We do not
know the scale of what happened in the Temple (maybe it was not a very
disturbing action, given the enormous size of the Temple area),284 nor its
280 See A. Neumann, Jesus (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1906), p. 157. ‘Though pagans
also took seriously the matter of dishonoring the gods, they could hardly be expected to
appreciate the Sanhedrin’s sensitivities over someone who had blasphemed the God of
Israel. So…the Sanhedrin’s representatives chose to restate the charges against Jesus for
Pilate’s benefit. They presented Jesus as guilty not so much of blasphemy as of maiestas
laesa’ (Bryan, Render to Caesar, p. 60); ‘From the perspective of the Jewish authorities,
Jesus did not claim to be “king of the Jews” in the sense in which Pilate understood the
term. But the term functioned pragmatically for them, for it translated their concerns into
terms that Pilate could both understand and view as a threat’ (Webb, ‘The Roman
Examination’, p. 758).
281 This theological claim is made even now in scholarship claiming to make sober history.
For instance, James Dunn repeatedly speaks, as in a litany, about the priestly ‘irritation’,
‘increasing anger and hostility’, and ‘smouldering resentment’ (Dunn, Jesus Remembered,
pp. 786, 788, 790, 797), an opposition ending in his death (p. 798). In fact, this scholar
repeatedly suggests that the reason of the chief priests could have rather been an ‘excuse’
(pp. 785, 888).
282 See e.g. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 301–302, 318; Horsley, The Prophet Jesus,
pp. 145–46.
283 ‘The fundamental problem with focusing in this way on the Temple incident is that…it
leaves the meaningful business between Jesus and the priests. But viewing the matter as
primarily between the priests and Jesus only increases the difficulty in seeing why Pilate
would have executed him by crucifixion’ (P. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews
[New York: Vintage, 2000], p. 226); ‘Even if a violent act in the temple and a verbal threat
against it were, as is quite possible, the proximate cause of Jesus’ arrest, Pilate’s decision
to crucify him must have reckoned with additional facts’ (Allison, Constructing Jesus,
p. 237).
284 ‘Many suggest this was a minor incident, a relatively obscure event, hardly noticed, or
only a gesture. The problem is that those same people often see this event as leading to
Jesus’ death, but they cannot have it both ways. The more one makes the event a minor
incident, the more difficult it is to see it as causing Jesus’ arrest’ (Snodgrass, ‘The Temple
Incident’, p. 447). This problem is perceptible e.g. in a recent work by Horsley, who tries in
vain to defend himself from the objection: ‘A demonstration in and against the Temple
would have been viewed as a challenge to the imperial order. This is true even if the

78 Bermejo-Rubio
meaning,285 and thus we cannot be sure that it justified the authorities pro-
ceeding against him, much less crucifying him.
According to another approach, Jesus would have undermined the status
quo upon which the Roman Empire was based by preaching that service was to
be given to those of lower status and ‘by insisting that people give without
expectation of return’. Given that the character of the Roman Empire was insti-
tuted and validated by the gods, ‘this too was fundamentally a religious infrac-
tion’, so Jesus ‘ran afoul of this religio-political order’ and ‘must have been
regarded as a political risk’.286 According to a similarly odd ‘logic’, in the opin-
ion of some scholars Jesus was crucified because he was non-violent within a
violent Empire!287
Another explanation says that Jesus was perceived to be a direct threat to
the pax Romana not because of any action made by him, but because he had
influence over a movement of enthusiastic commoners that hailed him as the
harbinger of the messianic Kingdom and had the potential to cause unrest, so
Pilate made a preemptive strike by removing the potential cause before it got
out of hand.288 In doing so, Pilate acted just like Herod Antipas handled the
demonstration were much more modest than portrayed in Mark and John and somewhat
“disguised” in the crowded festivities of the celebration of Passover’ (Horsley, The Prophet
Jesus, p. 147); ‘Even a limited demonstration would have been observed, along with
whatever following may have coalesced around him’ (pp. 148–49). The simple truth, how-
ever, is that nobody can know if such a demonstration was actually observed by the
rulers or not.
285 ‘What Jesus sought to accomplish with this event is murky at best’ (Snodgrass, ‘The
Temple Incident’, p. 462; see also pp. 462–74).
286 J.T. Carroll and J.B. Green, ‘Why Crucifixion? The Historical Meaning of the Cross’, in
Carroll and Green, The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (Peabody, ma: Hendrickson,
1995), pp. 165–81, here 180.
287 ‘Spiritual and non-violent resistance was…an essential part of the Messianic ideal as pur-
sued by Jesus. Crucifixion by the Romans was its inevitable result’ (J. Gwyn Griffiths, ‘The
Disciple’s Cross’, nts 16 [1970], pp. 358–64, here p. 363). This puzzling view is also implicit
in Gerd Theissen’s words: ‘Jesus, der als politischer Verbrecher von den Römern hingerich-
tet wurde und dessen friedensfördernde Ansichten zur Gewaltlosigkeit Pilatus wohl
kaum beeindruckt haben dürften, falls er sie überhaupt kannte: Pilatus hatte an eigenem
Leib erfahren, daß von Gewaltlosigkeit eine große Macht ausgehen kann, die nicht weni-
ger politisch gefährlich werden kann wie gewalttätiger Widerstand’ (G. Theissen,
‘Gewaltverzicht und Feindesliebe (Mt 5,38–48/Lk 6,27–38) und deren sozialgeschichtli-
cher Hintergrund’, in idem, Studien zur Soziologie des Urchristentums [Tübingen: Mohr,
1979], pp. 160–97, here 195).
288 See e.g. E. Rivkin, What Crucified Jesus? (London: scm, 1986), pp. 49, 62–63, 70, 76;
Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 234; eadem, ‘Why was Jesus Crucified, but his Followers

case of John the Baptist. The ultimate reason for Jesus’ death was the crowd’s
excitement, not Jesus himself.
Significantly, most scholars seem to make do with assuming that, given the
arbitrariness and harshness of Roman rule, almost anything would have suf-
ficed as a ground for the condemnation of a Jew to be crucified.289 This assump-
tion is often explicitly stated.290 In fact, recently it has been even surmised that
‘the Roman authorities did not believe that Jesus was a kingly pretender of any
real kind. Instead they thought him insane…the Romans executed Jesus
because they thought they were disposing of a deluded lunatic’.291 Others
assert that this execution was nothing but routine.292
were not?’, jsnt 29 (2007), pp. 415–19, 418 (‘Pilate puts Jesus on a cross as a would-be king,
in order to disabuse these unruly crowds about their messiah’); Webb, ‘The Roman
Examination’, p. 757; ‘So far as the governor was concerned, he would have seen sufficient
reason for ordering the crucifixion if he had come to feel that Jesus’ itinerant preaching
tended to excite the masses to expect the end of the existing order’ (Winter, On the Trial
of Jesus, pp. 206–207).
289 In fact, one of the few explanations of crucifixion I have not yet seen expounded in schol-
arship is that Jesus was crucified because in those days Pontius Pilate had suffered from a
terrible headache…
290 ‘It would have sufficed as a ground for the condemnation of Jesus if only a small section
of his following had understood his preaching in a political sense, and if such a circum-
stance had come to the knowledge of Pilate’ (Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, p. 193); ‘Jesus
could have been one of those innocent victims who are picked up by police action at a
time when peace-keeping has become difficult and the forces of law and order are over-
stretched, and then arbitrarily put to death’ (A.E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of
History [Philadelphia, pa: Westminster, 1982], p. 16); ‘At the time of Passover and the
other great gatherings in Jerusalem it would not have taken much to cause the Romans to
intervene to ensure quiet’ (W.D. Davies and E.P. Sanders, ‘Jesus: From the Jewish Point of
View’, in The Cambridge History of Judaism. Volume 3: The Early Roman Period [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999], pp. 618–77, here p. 673); ‘Jesus’ execution was hardly
worth a second thought by Pilate’ (J.J. Meggitt, ‘The Madness of King Jesus: Why was Jesus
Put to Death, but His Followers were not?’, jsnt 29 [2007], pp. 379–413, here p. 406).
Patterson claims that simply speaking about the Kingdom would have sealed Jesus’ death:
‘We do not have to imagine unspoken political or military agenda, or secret ties to Zealots
to account for Jesus’ fate. It was enough that Jesus dared to speak of a new Empire, an
Empire of God… In daring to speak of Empire, Jesus joined a line of philosophers, Cynics,
and prophets who questioned the authenticity of the Roman Pax, and he paid for it
with his life’ (S.J. Patterson, ‘The End of Apocalypse’, Theology Today 52 [1995], pp. 29–48,
here 45).
291 See Meggitt, ‘The Madness of King Jesus’, p. 384.
292 The claim that ‘the execution of Jesus was in all probability a routine crucifixion of a mes-
sianic agitator’ (H.K. Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation [Cambridge:

80 Bermejo-Rubio
The fact that in the twenty-first century views according to which Jesus was
crucified because he was hated by priests, because he had blasphemed, because
he was deemed mad, because a misunderstanding took place, or because Pilate
was capable of crucifying anyone over the slightest little thing, are still
advanced as respectable scholarship in the exegetical market shows to what
extent there is something odd in the state of historical Jesus studies.
Significantly, these ‘explanations’ share a whole set of suspicious features:
(1) They dispense with most of the evidence for a seditious Jesus; (2) The
Golgotha scene—a collective crucifixion with Jesus in the middle—is never
actually explained (in fact, the sacrosanct dogma according to which Jesus was
arrested and crucified alone underlies them all); (3) All of them assume that
Jesus was innocent of any truly disruptive political activity, thereby assuming
in a large measure the view of the evangelists.293 The lack of historical credibil-
ity of the purported explanations of Jesus’ death, however widespread in the
field, should be evident: they are somewhere on a scale between the specula-
tive and the fanciful.294
6.3 How Not to Explain Jesus’ Words and Deeds, or the Commentators’
Despair
As I have argued, there is much material outside the crucifixion having clear
seditious overtones. For those rejecting the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus, all
this material appears extremely puzzling, to the extent that they describe it as
‘enigmatic’, ‘strange’, ‘very intractable’.295 The presence of such sayings and
Cambridge University Press, 1998], p. 204; see also Bryan, Render to Caesar, p. 62) is unwar-
ranted. We have no evidence of Pilate having crucified other people (although probably
he did sometimes), or having had to face messianic agitators regularly (the only exception
is that of a Samaritan messianic claimant, several years later), so we are not authorized to
speak of ‘routine’.
293 Even the view that Jesus was deemed as a deluded lunatic assumes the reliability of some
impressions that the Gospels want to convey: for instance, that Jesus was the only mem-
ber of his group to be crucified.
294 In the end, the fact of the crucifixion has been perceived as a factor hindering a sound
understanding of Jesus: ‘Insofern stand das Faktum der Kreuzigung einem
sachgemäßen Verständnis Jesu in gewisser Weise sogar entgegen’ (Kuhn, ‘Kreuzesstrafe’,
p. 736).
295 The following expression, referred to Lk. 22.36, could be generalized: ‘That the commen-
tators have floundered in a morass of perplexity when faced with this notoriously difficult
passage is undoubtedly true’ (G.W.H. Lampe, ‘The Two Swords (Luke 22:35–38)’, in
Bammel and Moule [eds.], Jesus and the Politics of his Day, pp. 335–51, here p. 335);
P.S. Minear, ‘The Enigma of the Swords’, ExpT 49 (1939), pp. 467–70.

episodes is often left ultimately unexplained.296 But even when most items are
taken into account and their historicity is accepted, the usual way of handling
them is to carry out a compartmentalizing analysis of each passage in order to
prove that their apparent meaning is to be discounted and replaced by another
interpretation in which any violent and revolutionary overtones have been
eradicated.297
One of the favourite procedures used to explain away many pieces of infor-
mation with seditious overtones is the same that is used to account for the
crucifixion: they are the result of a sad misunderstanding.298 The assumption
underlying this claim is that Jesus was exceedingly original and unique, and
that he coined unexpected meanings for his discourse. For instance, the sub-
versive implications of preaching the ‘kingdom of God’ are wiped out by claim-
ing that with that expression Jesus meant something quite different from the
meaning attached to it by the other Jews of his time. The fact that Jesus does
not deny the charge of deeming himself to be ‘king of the Jews’ would mean
that he had a diverging (otherworldly) view of kingship.299
As to the saying about ‘taking up the cross’, most scholars deny that the
logion was understood to be referring literally to crucifixion, and interpret it in
a figurative way, usually as a metaphor for potential martyrdom, a hard way of
life, break of family ties, or radical self-denial.300 The text was ‘not necessarily
296 ‘On the whole, there is much to be said for the suggestion that some astray Zealot phrases
have somehow intruded their way into the Gospel record’ (F.W. Beare, The Earliest Records
of Jesus [New York: Abingdon, 1962], p. 229, my italics).
297 This is the method carried out in works such as Bammel and Moule (eds.), Jesus and the
Politics of his Day; H.A. Fast, Jesus and Human Conflict (Scottdale, pa: Herald Press, 1959);
Jossa, Gesù e i movimenti di liberazione (see pp. 102–103: ‘Vedremo in seguito caso per
caso quale sia l’attendibilitá storica dei racconti dei singoli episodi’); among many
others.
298 ‘Wir müssen auch damit rechnen, dass die [zwiefache] Einstellung Jesu dem Staat und
den Zeloten gegenüber tatsächlich nicht verstanden wurde. Wir wissen, dass seine
eigenen Jünger sie nicht verstanden’ (Cullmann, Staat, p. 27); idem, Jesus und die
Revolutionären, pp. 47–48.
299 ‘A kingdom whose very difference would make it incomprehensible to many, as it
remained for his immediate disciples and as it became objectionable to many of his fol-
lowers’ (Klassen, ‘Jesus and the Zealot Option’, p. 21). ‘Jesus certainly laid claim to kingship
in an unpolitical sense” (G. Schneider, “The Political Charge against Jesus (Luke 23:2)’, in
Bammel and Moule (eds.), Jesus and the Politics of his Day, pp. 402–414, here p. 409). ‘Re
egli può anche essere definito, ma solo in senso totalmente diverso da quello politico-
nazionale dell’autorità romana’ (Jossa, Gesù e i movimenti di liberazione, p. 195).
300 S. Bøe, Cross-Bearing in Luke (Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 2010), pp. 17–18; Davies, The
Gospel and the Land, p. 340.

82 Bermejo-Rubio
intended to visualize “the cross”’, but ‘death, pain and shame—in an unspeci-
fied way’.301 According to others, the saying refers to the cross as a cultic mark-
ing; or should be compared to ‘take up Jesus’ yoke’ (Mt. 11.29); or is read as an
allusion to the Akedah. Every possibility is advanced in order not to accept the
simplest (and embarrassing) meaning.302
Everything in Lk. 22.35–38 constitutes an insolvable problem for most schol-
ars, who often recognize the shortcomings of the alleged explanations.303
Jesus’ exhortation to his disciples to buy a sword in 22.36 should not be taken
literally, but merely in a spiritual or symbolic sense.304 When the possibility of
a literal interpretation is envisaged, it is understood as an injunction for the
disciples to defend themselves,305 or as conveying the preparedness for a
future struggle to survive in a hostile world.306 Some scholars interpret it just
301 G. Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background and Significance
of the New Testament Terminology of Crucifixion (Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 2011),
p. 242.
302 It is revealing that one of the ‘arguments’ used by Bøe is that it is improbable that ‘a peace-
ful person like Jesus would use such military or revolutionary expressions’ (Cross-Bearing
in Luke, p. 25).
303 ‘T. W. Manson explains the words of v. 36 as “grim irony…the utterance of a broken
heart” (Sayings, p. 341); but the irony is lost on his disciples, who think that he means
to fight his way out, and they produce two swords to show that they are ready to fight
beside him. The reply of Jesus “It is enough”, can certainly not be taken as meaning
that two swords will suffice; neither can we be satisfied with Manson’s suggestion
that it represents an abrupt “No more of this!” The passage is in fact the despair of
commentators’ (F.W. Beare, The Earliest Records of Jesus [New York: Abingdon, 1962],
pp. 228–29).
304 ‘The word “sword” in this passage…very probably has no reference whatever to a physical
weapon’ (Fast, Jesus and Human Conflict, p. 105); see also F. Hahn, Christologische
Hoheitstitel (4th edn; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974), p. 168; among many oth-
ers. Mt. 10.34/Lk. 12.51–53 is also usually interpreted in a metaphoric sense (e.g. Cullmann,
Staat, pp. 22–23; idem, Jesus und die Revolutionären, p. 67).
305 E.g. Cullmann, Staat, p. 23; idem, Jesus und die Revolutionären, p. 68.
306 See Lampe, ‘The Two Swords’, p. 338. According to this author, ‘of all the attempts to
make sense of Luke 22:35–38 as a factual record perhaps the best is that of Cyril of
Alexandria… He understood Jesus to be foretelling the Jewish war’ (‘The Two Swords’,
p. 350). For a recent example of the endless puzzlement, see E. Voigt, Die Jesusbewegung.
Hintergründe ihrer Entstehung und Ausbreitung—Eine historisch-exegetische Unter
suchung über die Motive der Jesusnachfolge (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2008), pp. 268–71:
‘Die Empfehlung, ein Schwert zu kaufen, kann aber nur eine punktuelle Sache sein’
(p. 271).

as a way of revealing the disciples’ misunderstanding,307 whilst others dismiss

it as a mere ‘way of speaking’.308
The passage in which the disciples show (two) swords to Jesus has been puz-
zling from the earliest days of the Church, and given rise to all kind of interpre-
tations. John Chrysostom suggested that they were sacrificial knives taken
from the table where they had been used for the Passover lamb. Others think
that they were fishermen’s knives, intended for use when the disciples went
back to their fishing in Galilee. Others, that the disciples had found them in
Peter’s house at Capernaum, left over from past wars, and brought them to
defend the group against attack by Antipas.309 The usual explanation is that,
such as the Essenes did according to Josephus, the swords were carried for
defensive purposes.310 Jesus’ answer in Lk. 22.38b (‘It is enough’) is considered
as Luke’s own composition in the light of a prophecy, and/or explained as an
ironical reaction to the inept comment by Jesus’ disciples,311 or as an expres-
sion of Jesus’ sorrow, or as a way of finishing the dialogue.312
The violence involved in the episode of the Temple is downplayed, justified
or even interpreted in bonam partem,313 and sometimes blatantly denied.314
307 ‘They [scil. the disciples] had already secured the swords, secretly, fearfully, disobedi-
ently…his command to buy a sword does not annul his earlier way of life, but serves to
disclose the point of their treachery’ (P.S. Minear, ‘A Note on Luke xxii 36’, NovT 7 [1964–
65], pp. 128–34, here 132–33).
308 ‘En invitant ses disciples à “acheter une épée”, le Jésus lucanien recourait à une “manière
de parler”. Dès lors, le “cela suffit” interrompt un discours qui déraille’ (Bovon, L’Évangile
selon saint Luc, p. 227).
309 See resp. W. Western, ‘The Enigma of the Swords’, ExpT 50 (1939), p. 377; H. Helmbold,
Vorsynoptische Evangelien (Stuttgart: Klotz, 1953), p. 41.
310 M. Black, ‘“Not peace but a sword”: Matt 10:34ff; Luke 12:51ff’, in Bammel and Moule (eds.),
Jesus and the Politics of his Day, pp. 287–94, 290. ‘The two swords were not evidence of
revolutionary intention so much as an attempt to guarantee the personal safety of Jesus.
But perhaps no entirely satisfactory solution is possible’ (Fast, Jesus and Human Conflict,
pp. 71–72).
311 See Lampe, ‘The Two Swords’, p. 34; see also pp. 342, 351.
312 Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären, pp. 68–69.
313 ‘There was violence of a sort in that procedure, but it was a violence called forth and con-
trolled by a holy purpose’ (Fast, Jesus and Human Conflict, p. 120).
314 ‘Man wird…aus der turbulenten Szene nicht die Rechtfertigung physischer Gewalt durch
Jesus erschließen dürfen. Seinen Kampf mit den herrschenden Mächten seines Volkes
führte er…“sine vi humana, sed verbo”, ohne menschliche Gewalt, sondern allein durch
Gottes Wort’ (M. Hengel, Christus und die Macht—Die Macht Christi und die Ohnmacht
der Christen. Zur Problematik einer ‘Politischen Theologie’ in der Geschichte der Kirche

84 Bermejo-Rubio
The violence in Gethsemane is minimized by resorting to the symbolical

meaning of the act,315 or attributing it to the disciples’ short-sightedness. The
vagueness of the phrase ‘a certain one of those standing by’ in Mk 14.47 has led
several scholars to suggest that the sword-wielder might not be one of Jesus’
followers, but a member of a third group.316 According to others, that man
would be a member of the arresting party itself!317
The former survey is just a sample: dozens of further examples could be eas-
ily added. Time and time again, by virtue of mental gymnastics, things are not
what they (quite clearly) appear to be. The most extravagant interpretations
have been elaborated in order to defuse the subversive contents of the avail-
able material. The fantasy of scholars—what Johannes Weiss once called ‘die
Umdeutungskunst der Exegeten’ (‘the exegetes’ art of reinterpretation’)—has
run riot in the attempt not to recognize the obvious.
This procedure does not carry conviction, not only because it entails an
atomizing approach to the evidence and is incapable of offering a unifying
explanation of the whole material, but also because it systematically involves
strained and far-fetched interpretations, to the extent that many passages
whose meaning is obvious enough in themselves (and even clearer in light of
the detected consistent pattern) virtually become cruces interpretum, not to
say unfathomable mysteries.318 The systematic need of such convoluted
[Stuttgart: Calwer, 1974], p. 18). The embarrassment caused by the Temple incident is to be
perceived in early Christian attempts to drop any violence from it; see M.-É. Boismard,
‘Jésus a-t-il usé de violence en chassant les vendeurs du Temple?’, rb 110 (2003),
pp. 33–37.
315 Lampe, ‘The Two Swords’, pp. 343–45; B.T. Viviano, ‘The High Priest’s Servant’s Ear: Mark
14:47’, rb 96 (1989), pp. 71–80.
316 E. Schweizer, Das Evangelium nach Markus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968),
p. 183; ‘The most likely inference from Mark is that the sword-wielder belonged to a third
group’ (Brown, The Death of the Messiah, I, pp. 266–67); ‘One of a group who had followed
Judas and his group out of curiosity’ (M.E. Boring, Mark. A Commentary [Louisville, ky:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2006], p. 402).
317 See e.g. L. Schenke, Der gekreuzigte Christus. Versuch einer literarkritischen und tradition-
sgeschichtlichen Bestimmung der vormarkinisschen Passionsgeschichte (Stuttgart: kbw,
1974), pp. 118–20; R. Pesch, Das Markusevangelium. II. Teil (Freiburg: Herder, 1977),
p. 400; Légasse, Procès, p. 43; ‘Celui qui utilise son épée et coupe l’oreille du serviteur du
grand prêtre doit tout naturellement appartenir à cette foule venue arrêter Jésus; confu-
sion et incohérence: pendant que l’un des Douze livre Jésus, un homme en arme blesse
quelqu’un qui appartient à son camp’ (P. Lamarche, Évangile de Marc [Paris: Gabalda,
1996], pp. 338–39).
318 We also find the opposite device: passages whose meaning is in fact equivocal or quite
dark are blithely interpreted as criticism of anti-Roman rebels. For instance, Lk. 23.31

re-readings, always carried out in the sense of a blunt de-politicization of Jesus’

preaching and activities, makes their reliability highly suspicious, not to say
simply incredible. This procedure, aimed at keeping safe the image of a non-
violent Jesus, does indeed demand endless exegetical detours and odd devices,
and compels scholars to contrive explanations of a labyrinthine complexity,
hardly discernible from hermeneutical prestidigitation.
The problem lies in the fact that we are supposed to cope everywhere with
psychological and historical improbabilities.319 This is, however, a bit hard to
swallow, especially when—as we have argued—there is at our disposal a
hypothesis letting us make sense of all the material in the simplest and most
comprehensible way. The former survey proves that there is simply no con-
vincing way of making sense of much Gospel evidence if the hypothesis of a
seditious Jesus is ruled out.
7 Counter-objections to the Main Objections against the Hypothesis
It is a curious phenomenon that, whenever the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus

is put forward, the prevailing reaction, even before having weighed up the rea-
sons supporting it and evaluating its explanatory power, is not only to raise
one’s eyebrows but also to raise a whole battery of objections. Anyway, these
objections must be seriously taken, because, irrespective of their ultimate
value, a hypothesis is to be preferred if it is capable of explaining convincingly
the (real or perceived) anomalies that are set forth against it.
(‘For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’) is viewed
as containing ‘a pejorative note against the Zealots’ (Cullmann, Staat, pp. 34–35; Davies,
The Gospel and the Land, p. 341). The passage of John 10 on the good shepherd is also inter-
preted as an anti-Zealot saying (see Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären, pp. 52–53).
But the most notorious case is Mt. 11.12/Lk. 16.16. Although the saying is admittedly
puzzling and obscure, as any serious scholar must avow—see P.S. Cameron, Violence and
the Kingdom: The Interpretation of Matthew 11:12 (Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 1984);
G. Häfner, ‘Gewalt gegen die Basileia? Zum Problem der Auslegung des “Stürmerspruches”
Mt 11, 12’, ZnW 83 (1992), pp. 21–51; Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären, p. 52—
many scholars try to turn this saying into proof of Jesus’ pacifism (see e.g. Betz, ‘Jesu
Heiliger Krieg’, pp. 128–30; Fast, Jesus and Human Conflict, pp. 73–74). Such attempts are
desperately vain.
319 If Jesus’ aims had no political implications, he was intelligent enough to say it very clearly.
As Hyam Maccoby ironically comments: ‘This is inherently unlikely. If he meant some-
thing entirely different why did he use these expressions at all? Why say “dictatorship of
the proletariat” when what you really mean is “God bless the Tsar”?’ (Maccoby, Revolution
in Judaea, p. 124); see also Hennell, An Inquiry, p. 415.

86 Bermejo-Rubio
Throughout this essay, we have had the opportunity to unveil the lack of
cogency of many objections against the hypothesis. For example, consider the
following from the preceding discussion: ‘The hypothesis is the result of ideo-
logical prejudices’;320 ‘There is not enough evidence supporting it’;321 ‘The fact
that there is so much evidence preserved in the Gospels proves that it was not
embarrassing, so Jesus was not a seditionist’;322 ‘Judaea in Jesus’ time was a quiet
place’;323 ‘Jesus’ target was only the priestly caste, not the Romans’;324 ‘Any vio-
lence conveyed in the Gospels should be attributed only to the short-sighted
disciples, not to Jesus’;325 ‘Jesus could not advocate any kind of violent resistance
against the Empire because he thought God was in charge’;326 ‘It suffers from
one-sidedness’,327 and so on. In fact, a fourth key argument supporting the
hypothesis is that every main objection levelled so far against it can be coun-
tered. Given that elsewhere I have devoted a whole article to enumerate and
answer a score of such objections,328 and that space prohibits here a full discus-
sion, below I give only a few examples, just in order to show that the objections
which have been set forth to ‘refute’ the hypothesis are far from being compel-
ling and can, all of them, be easily answered.
7.1 Was Jesus Arrested and Crucified Alone?

A widespread assumption in the field is that Jesus could not be involved in
seditious activities, because his disciples and followers were left unmolested,
but this does not correspond to the usual Roman procedure against sedition-
ists.329 There are, however, strong reasons for maintaining that the assumption
that Jesus was arrested and crucified alone is unwarranted.330 First, the four
320 See supra, section 1.

328 See F. Bermejo-Rubio, ‘Has the Hypothesis of a Seditionist Jesus been Dealt a Fatal Blow?
A Systematic Answer to the Doubters’, Bandue. Revista de la Sociedad Española de Ciencias
de las Religiones 7 (2013), pp. 19–57.
329 See e.g. Hengel, War Jesus Revolutionär?, p. 16; Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 304–305;
Theissen and Merz, Der historische Jesus, p. 403; Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and
Interpretation, p. 204; among many others.
330 For a thorough treatment of this issue, see Bermejo-Rubio, ‘(Why) Was Jesus the Galilean
Crucified Alone?’.

Gospels assert that Jesus was crucified along with two men (most probably
insurrectionists), and, as I have argued above,331 even if the evangelists do not
say a word about their relationship with Jesus, such disconnectedness is highly
improbable. Secondly, we have already seen that the simplest and most plau-
sible explanation for the Gospel account that Jesus was crucified in the centre
of those men is that he was their leader (their ‘king’); this is made even more
plausible when the fact that crucifixion (as other Roman punishments) had an
intrinsic mimetic character, aimed at deterrence, is taken into account.332
Thirdly, there are several hints pointing to the fact that the disciples were also
persecuted, and that they deeply feared facing the same death as Jesus: (a) the
disciples’ flight, including the story in Mk 14.51–52; (b) the story of Peter’s
denial, obviously out of fear;333 (c) according to Jn 18.19, ‘the high priest asked
Jesus about his disciples’. Again, the simplest explanation of these fears is that
they were caused by the seditious ideology and/or activities of the group. All
this indicates that, despite the impression which the Gospel writers try to con-
vey, the disciples worried the authorities, and in all probability Jesus must not
have been arrested alone, but rather arrested and crucified along with several
followers.
Many scholars will be prone to reject such an inference by arguing that it is
hard to imagine that earliest Christian memory would have simply forgotten
the identity of these people (such a momentous event in Jesus’ story!), or—if
there were any overt intentions at work—that there would have been reason to
silence such a fact in primitive Christianity. Nonetheless, one can easily imag-
ine reasonable responses to these objections. For instance, perhaps the tradi-
tion did not keep memory of the identity of those crucified alongside Jesus
because they were not some of his closest disciples, but other less significant
supporters.334 When and where would these men have been arrested is a ques-
tion which must be left open, as several possibilities arise (were they caught in

332 See J. Marcus, ‘Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation’, jbl 125 (2006), pp. 73–87.
333 Even if the details of this story were to be deemed unhistorical, its kernel shows the extent
of a disciple’s fear. It is significant that, in this episode, Peter is told: ‘Surely you also are
one of them’ (Άληθῶς καὶ σὺ ἐξ αὐτῶν εἶ); the plural pronoun presupposes that the people
arrested constituted a group.
334 The probability that Jesus had more supporters than just his core group could be inferred
not only from the ‘triumphal entry’, but especially from Mk 11.1–6 and Mk 14.12–16, that
assume the existence of a Jerusalem network. These passages may betray not only the
existence of such followers, but the possibility that some of them might be previously
unknown to (at least some of) Jesus’ disciples.

88 Bermejo-Rubio
the insurrection mentioned by Mark and Luke, in Gethsemane, or somewhere

else?).
But we can also explain why this aspect would have been silenced. After all,
as we have argued, several crucial episodes have been obscured or disguised in
the Gospel accounts, either by the evangelists or by the traditions on which
they rely.335 Furthermore, it is not hard to understand why the evangelists
would have been interested in being silent about the identity of those crucified
along with Jesus, and why the idea that he died alone was created and trans-
mitted in Christian sources. On the one hand, the unveiling of their true iden-
tity would have made exceedingly suspicious the Gospels’ device of
distinguishing Jesus from the sort of revolutionary hopes that were failing time
and again, in order to detach him from the dirt of this world. On the other
hand, given the Christian belief in Jesus as a matchless godlike hero and in his
death as having an incomparable and transcendental soteriological value,
there was no interest in the tradition of preserving the memory of other people
who were hunted down along with him, especially if they suffered exactly the
same death penalty as he did. Such a memory would have aroused embarrass-
ing questions concerning the allegedly unique potentialities and meaning of
Jesus’ death. The theology of the expiatory death of Jesus might have contrib-
uted to the dropping of some significant information.336
The former reflections help to explain why, if the people crucified with Jesus
were his followers, this fact is not recorded in the Gospels. But even if these
reflections are not deemed convincing enough, the assumption that Jesus was
crucified alone should not be hastily upgraded to the status of a cogent objec-
tion against the hypothesis of his being involved in seditious activities, since
perhaps all what happened is, purely and simply, that his followers managed
to flee.

336 It could be still objected that Paul describes himself as co-crucified with Jesus, that Luke
portrays Stephen’s death as a replica of Jesus’ death, and that, therefore, the memory of
other people being executed with Jesus would not have aroused embarrassing questions
(Tobias Hägerland raised this objection in a private communication by email, 7 October
2012). This, however, might be begging the question. Jesus’ dramatic isolation and
uniqueness in his death are essential in the Christian soteriological scheme, and accord-
ingly any comparison with that death is countered in advance. Who takes away the sin of
the world is the Lamb of God, not a whole flock; it is only his blood which has salvific
implications, and this is the blood of a single sacrifice. Once the idea of Jesus’ only-saving
death had been firmly established, the association of any other death with that paradig-
matic death could be allowed, and entailed no danger for the theological scheme. In fact,
that very association presupposes the notion of the only-saving death.

A variant of the former objection applies to the later history of the Christian
groups: If Jesus had been involved in seditionist activities, his followers would
have been searched out, but the Romans did not persecute the movement after
the death of Jesus.337 This objection also presents several problems. The first
one is that if, as I have argued, the Christian tradition has probably dropped
evidence pointing to the search for Jesus’ disciples, it could also drop further
evidence regarding later developments. Or perhaps there was a brief interval
of persecution (Mark and Matthew keep record of the disciples going to
Galilee), and when the leaders of the new movement established themselves
in Jerusalem the danger was gone.
More importantly, even taking for granted that there was no further persecu-
tion, this can be understood in the light of our version of the seditionist hypoth-
esis. If Jesus and his followers had reserved the use of arms for the moment
when the eschatological irruption of God took place—put otherwise, if they
were not engaged in systematic violence—it would be more understandable
that, once having checked that Jesus’ hopes had been unfulfilled, his followers
immediately renounced the use of weapons and limited themselves to wait for
his glorious return; in fact, the crucifixion itself seems to have acted as a deter-
rent for a recourse to arms. In these circumstances, the fact that they were not
persecuted by the Romans is not especially intriguing. Probably the Romans
tended to limit their intervention to the occasions when the threat was real—
when people were armed, or when there were big crowds involved.338 If the
Romans had persecuted the sympathizers of every alleged messiah and/or
king, they would have had to kill hundreds or thousands of Jews every year.339
337 ‘Perchè non c’è restato traccia di una persecuzione romana del cristianesimo nascente in
Giudea, ma solo di una persecuzione ebraica (Stefano, Giacomo)?’ (P. Sacchi, ‘Review of
S.G.F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots’, Revue de Qumran 23 [1968], pp. 444–55, here 454);
‘The Romans played no role in the persecution of the movement after the death of Jesus’
(Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, p. 285); Hengel, ‘Review of S.G.F. Brandon, Jesus and the
Zealots’, p. 237.
338 ‘If…the disciples fled to Galilee on the night of Jesus’ arrest, and if there were only twelve
of them, they may have been difficult for the Romans to track, and the latter may have
quickly reached the conclusion that to try to do so was senseless, since the revolutionary
ferment seemed to have been nipped in the bud by Jesus’ crucifixion’ (J. Marcus, ‘Meggitt
on the Madness and Kingship of Jesus’, jsnt 29 [2007], pp. 421–24, here 423).
339 Moreover, the Roman system of criminal prosecution tended to be accusatorial, not
inquisitorial. When Pliny the Younger writes to Trajan for advice (Pliny 10.96), the emperor
advises him not to seek out Christians for prosecution (conquirendi non sunt). During a
time, the Nazarenes were a sect within Judaism, so they were protected under the aegis of
the Synagogue.

90 Bermejo-Rubio
It is probable that the authorities did not see Jesus’ followers as posing any
threat once their leader and self-styled king (and probably some of his support-
ers) were crucified, especially if the Nazarene sect did not organize open mes-
sianic disturbances, and apparently it did not.340 Therefore, the fact that the
Nazarene sect, which rapidly became an apolitical messianic group,341 remained
active in Jerusalem is not necessarily a valid argument against the involvement
of Jesus in anti-Roman activities.342
7.2 Did the Message of ‘Love thy Enemies’ Put Jesus beyond the Political
Antagonisms of his Age?
The injunction concerning the love of one’s enemies and lack of resistance to
evil, conveyed in Mt. 5.38–39, 48, is a typical objection to any hypothesis of a
seditious Jesus. The presence of the closing antitheses of the Sermon on the
Mount, with its teaching of love, seems to preclude any violent reaction against
the Roman Empire and its collaborators.343
This objection, however, was already countered by Robert Eisler almost a
century ago, by arguing that there are several reasonable answers.344 One is
that, if one finds a contradiction between Mt. 5 and—for instance—the say-
ings about the swords, and decides to drop the latter as secondary, then one
340 According to Josephus, A.J. XX.1.1, Cuspius Fadus put an end to brigandage by making an
example of a few. Some Roman authorities in first-century Palestine seem to have consid-
ered preemptive killing of the leaders of a trouble-making group to be sufficient to quell
the disturbance and stir up fear among the followers.
341 According to Hegesippus as reported by Eusebius, the grand-nephews of Jesus were
brought before the emperor Domitian to face a political charge connected to their being
‘descendants of David’ (H. E. III.20; see III.32). They were apparently set free when they
explained that Jesus’ kingdom was a heavenly one.
342 As far as I know, after the incidents at Waco Siege and David Koresh’s death in 1993, the
Branch Davidians were not violently persecuted by the us government, even despite the
fact that some of them returned to Mount Carmel Center.
343 Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären, p. 24; Hengel, War Jesus Revolutionär?, pp. 20–22;
Hengel, Die Zeloten, p. 386; H. Merkel, ‘The Opposition between Jesus and Judaism’, in
Bammel and Moule (eds.), Jesus and the Politics of his Day, pp. 129–44, esp. 143–44;
Klassen, ‘Jesus and the Zealot Option’, p. 21; Pesce, ‘Ricerche recenti’, pp. 76–78; ‘If Jesus
did indeed teach that love of neighbor included love of enemies, as most agree, then that
alone knocks a large hole in any thesis that Jesus sought a military solution’ (Dunn, Jesus
Remembered, p. 624).
344 Admittedly, it is not necessary to attribute Mt. 5.43–44 to the Alexandrian situation
after 70 ce (Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, pp. 308–309), given that they possibly ante-
date Matthew (see Catchpole, ‘The Problem of the Historicity of the Sanhedrin Trial’,
pp. 51–52).

could also, and maybe with better reasons, drop the saying on love of one’s
enemies as secondary and inauthentic.345
Another—more convincing—possibility for explaining the whole evidence
is to state the idea of a spiritual evolution in Jesus. There are two interrelated
reasons to think so. First, seditious overtones surface more clearly in the clos-
ing stages of his life.346 Secondly, such as Eisler remarked, Lk. 22.36 seems to
witness a shift in Jesus’ attitude.347 This proposal is all the more reasonable
because there are several Gospel passages indicating that, as the decisive
moment in Jerusalem approached, Jesus underwent some critical situations
and adopted serious decisions.348
A further possibility lies in not finding contradiction at all between
Mt. 5.38–48 and a seditious stance. In fact, the two closing antitheses of the
Sermon on the Mount have been interpreted as making sense not (or not pri-
marily and specifically) in the political realm,349 but rather in a context of local
social interaction, and more probably in conflicts that would have been related
to the economic difficulties of communities which are disintegrating precisely
because of the rigorous taxation by Roman client rulers, indirectly because of
345 Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, p. 256; see Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, p. 210.
347 ‘Hier ist zunächst deutlich die Zeit der ersten Aussendung der Jünger von einem ‘jetzt’
(ἀλλὰ νῦν) unterschieden’ (Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, p. 267; for an extended argument
in this sense, see pp. 259–66). The hypothesis of a spiritual evolution in Jesus could better
explain the fact that some strands of the tradition present him as a rather meek figure. It
is interesting to take into account the reasons of the rejection of this hypothesis by some
authors: ‘Did Jesus in a moment of real crisis repudiate His earlier teaching not to resist
the evildoer by charging His disciples now to be prepared to meet sword with sword?…
Acceptance of that view would demand of Jesus almost a complete reversal of the whole
tone and tenor of His life and teaching in the moment of crisis. Such a reversal is incon-
ceivable in a person of the moral strength and perfection of Jesus, the Son of God’ (Fast,
Jesus and Human Conflict, p. 103).
348 On Jesus’ distress, see Mk 14.33–35; Mt. 26.37–39; Lk. 22.43–44; Heb. 5.7. This aspect of
tragic seriousness was perceptively remarked by Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, p. 270.
349 ἐχθρός in Mt. 5.44 does not seem to refer to foreign or political opponents. The term is
used with this meaning in 22.44 in his citation of Ps 110.1. In the other two instances in
which Matthew uses the term, it refers to members of one’s own family (10.36) and to
someone who sowed weeds in another’s wheat field (13.24–30, 36–43), so to private ene-
mies. For a detailed interpretation in this sense (ἐχθρός referring to private enemies), see
G. Puente Ojea, Fe cristiana, Iglesia, Poder (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1991), pp. 89–94; A. Piñero,
‘El “evangelio” paulino y los diversos “evangelios” del Nuevo Testamento’, in idem (ed.),
Fuentes del cristianismo. Tradiciones primitivas sobre Jesús (Córdoba: El Almendro, 1993),
pp. 269–363, esp. 290–92.

92 Bermejo-Rubio
Roman imperialism.350 If this reading is correct,351 the ‘love thy enemies’

saying would not be addressed to political enemies, but would paradoxi
cally express a form of resistance to oppressive foreign rule through con
structive social relations characterized by mutual assistance and a spirit of
solidarity.352
Admittedly, if one thinks—with most scholarly opinion—that the political
realm must not be excluded from the saying,353 unless we accept the already
mentioned view of a shift in Jesus, we should conclude that there is here a bla-
tant inconsistency. This, however, does not lead us into an impasse: religious
visionaries and charismatic preachers are not usually consistent.354
Contradictions of this kind are also found in the New Testament. For instance,
if ‘the contradiction between the commandment to love and the incitement to
hate not only belongs to later interpretations of the [Fourth] Gospel but is also
inherent in the text itself’,355 I cannot see why the simultaneous presence of
conflicting features could not be also present in Jesus’ life and mind.356 In fact,
350 ‘Jesus addresses conflicts rooted in such economic pressures with the principle “Love your
enemies”. From the context indicated in the content of the ensuing focal instances we can
see that local conflicts are addressed, not relations with Roman soldiers, who would not have
been on the scene as an occupying army in any case’ (Horsley, Jesus and Empire, p. 118).
351 ‘Whether it can be transposed to the social or political realms is a matter of ongoing
debate’ (D. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew [Collegeville, mn: Liturgical Press, 1991],
p. 88).
352 ‘The renewed covenantal community that Jesus advocated and enacted also forms a strik-
ing contrast with frequent modern interpretation of his teachings. In the context of cov-
enant renewal, “love” refers not to a feeling or an attitude, but to concrete economic
practices in village community, such as canceling debts and generous mutual sharing of
resources’ (Horsley, Jesus and Empire, p. 127). ‘The content of nearly all of the sayings
indicates a context of local interaction with personal enemies, not one of relations with
foreign or political foes’ (R.A. Horsley, ‘Ethics and Exegesis. “Love your Enemies” and the
Doctrine of Non-Violence’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 54 [1986], pp. 3–31,
here p. 17).
353 Note that ἐχθρός is the general term for ‘enemy’ in the LXX.
354 Eisler, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, II, p. 257; J.T. Sanders, ‘The Criterion of Coherence and the
Randomness of Charisma: Poring through some Aporias in the Jesus Tradition’, nts 44
(1998), pp. 1–25; ‘Millenarian prophets are consistently inconsistent’ (Allison, ‘A Response’,
in Miller (ed.), The Apocalyptic Jesus, p. 91).
355 A. Reinhartz, ‘Love, Hate, and Violence in the Gospel of John’, in Matthews and Gibson
(eds.), Violence in the New Testament, pp. 109–123, here 110.
356 In this light, the contention that ‘the story of Jesus itself, even as told by Matthew, undoes
the logic of eschatological violence’ (D.J. Neville, ‘Toward a Teleology of Peace: Contesting
Matthew’s Violent Eschatology’, jsnt 30.2 [2007], pp. 131–61, here p. 150) is unwarranted.

we find sayings in the Gospels that are extremely hostile to wealth and rich
people, but also passages witnessing financial support of the Jesus movement,
including women who were presumably not so poor; both traditions coexist
without any indication that they were contradictory, and it is likely that they go
back to Jesus’ lifetime. Moreover, throughout history many Christians (includ-
ing cardinals and popes) have hoisted love of enemies as their hallmark,
whereas they have hated, persecuted, waged war, and massacred their enemies,
and often they have presumably done it in all good faith.
7.3 Is Mt. 26.52–53 a Definite Proof that Jesus Rebuked Violence on

Principle?
The idea of a pacific and harmless Jesus is very often grounded in Mt. 26.52–53,
where he is depicted as scolding one of his disciples for resorting to arms.
Either scholars claim that this text is authentic and proves that Jesus rebuked
violence in his dealings with the Roman Empire,357 or they assert that it faith-
fully reflects Jesus’ renunciation of violence.358
To start with, we cannot be sure in the least that the utterance in Mt. 26.52
actually goes back to Jesus. It contains a quasi-proverbial saying—‘For all who
take the sword will perish by the sword’—which is probably a quotation from
Targ Isa. 50.11.359 More importantly, Mark records no response on Jesus’ part to
the disciple’s act of resistance, which further indicates that the utterance of
Mt. 26.52 might be a later interpolation. It is hard to believe that Mark would
have overlooked that rebuttal in such a crucial moment, so there are good rea-
sons to think that the sentence is a pious addition,360 aimed at countering the
scandal of Jesus’ impotence.361 It is accordingly methodologically unsound to
draw far-reaching conclusions from this passage.
357 Cullmann calls this passage ‘das Wort, das alles Zelotentum verurteilt’ (Jesus und die
Revolutionären, p. 24). ‘If we can take Matt. 26:52–53 as authentic dominical utterances…
Jesus dissociated Himself absolutely from political zealotry’ (Black, ‘“Not peace but a
sword”’, p. 293); Fast, Jesus and Human Conflict, p. 102. See also Klassen, ‘Jesus and the
Zealot Option’, p. 17.
358 Both sayings are ‘zwar spätere Ausmalungen, geben aber die Intention des Gewaltverzichts
Jesu grundsätzlich richtig wieder’ (Hengel, Christus und die Macht, pp. 18–19).
359 See Rev. 13.10; H. Kosmala, ‘Matthew xxvi 52—A Quotation from the Targum’, NovT 4
(1960), pp. 3–5.
360 ‘Rhétorique édifiante’ (Ch. Guignebert, Jésus [Paris: Renaissance du Livre, 1933], p. 478);
see Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, pp. 306–308.
361 ‘The verse resolves the scandal of the Son’s impotence—it is, in accordance with the res-
ignation of Gethsemane, voluntary—and makes him a moral model: the pacifistic
Messiah eschews holy war’ (D.C. Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary Based on the

94 Bermejo-Rubio
But even assuming, for the sake of the discussion, that the sentence comes
from Jesus, we should note that it is not necessarily a pacifistic utterance. As
Brandon rightly observed, it is obviously untrue as a general statement, insofar
as experience teaches that the compensatory justice contended by it does not
always happen. Moreover, the sentence does not entail a general rejection of
violence; in fact, it could convey a mere opportunistic pragmatism: it would
make sense if pronounced in a context in which a leader realizes that any
armed resistance would be doomed to failure, for instance due to the over-
whelming superiority of the opposing forces (‘Do not use the sword, or you will
be accordingly judged’). Therefore, the widespread claim that this passage sup-
ports the image of a non-violent Jesus is unwarranted.
Mt. 26.53 has Jesus saying that he could call down ‘more than twelve legions
of angels’ to bring him aid. I will accept the authenticity of the statement for
the sake of the discussion. Admittedly, Jesus rejects the assistance of angels, but
the mere fact that he envisages the possibility of commanding angelic armies is
quite significant by itself. Moreover, the actual rationale for not resorting to
violence significantly lies here only in that such option would frustrate the
divine plan (Mt. 26.54: ‘But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it
must be so?’), not in a rejection of violence as such.362 In fact, given the extent
of the distortion operating in Jesus’ tradition, we should not rule out the pos-
sibility that Jesus hoped the angels would join him, but not at that moment; or
that Jesus did indeed hope the angels would join him, but somebody decided
that he did not harbour that hope.363
Three-Volume International Critical Commentary by W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison [London:

T&T Clark, 2004], p. 486).
362 Such as Gonzalo Puente Ojea has perceptively remarked: ‘El Nazareno está manifiesta-
mente formulando aquí, no una condena incondicionada de la violencia (que aparece
como entrevista y no excluida a priori mediante el envío de guerreras legiones angélicas,
al modo esenio), sino más bien la exigencia de que se cumplan las previsiones profé-
ticas—las cuales han sido, a su vez, manipuladas para legitimar ex eventu un desastre
inesperado’ (Puente Ojea, El Evangelio de Marcos, pp. 83–84, emphasis original).
363 Elsewhere in the Gospels we have denials of what may well have happened. For instance,
Lk. 19.11 suggests that the disciples (but not Jesus) were wrong as they expected the king-
dom to appear at once. According to Jn 21.23, Jesus did not say that the end would pre-
cede the death of all his disciples (but this contradicts Mk 9.1). These texts seem to be
secondary rationalizations lacking historical plausibility. Maybe Mt. 26.53 is the same
sort of thing—somebody remembered or preserved a sentence which revealed that Jesus
hoped that the angelic hosts would join him, but that person thought that it could not be
true, and tampered with it in such a way that it meant the opposite. I owe this suggestion
to Dale Allison (personal communication by email, 1 October 2012).

There are scholars who, while assuming that the exact wording of Mt. 26.52–
53 may be secondary, think that the passage in fact captures the allegedly paci-
fistic attitude of the historical Jesus. The problem is that such radical
non-violence and harmlessness seem to be nothing but aprioristic claims,
whose reliability is radically called into question by the surveyed pattern.364
7.4 Does Jesus’ Reported Fellowship with Tax Collectors Prove that
he did not Endorse a Seditious Stance?
It is a virtual consensus that Jesus did in fact consort with tax collectors (and
even that this fellowship was a distinctive aspect of his ministry). That this
proves that he did not endorse an anti-Roman stance has become one of the
most typical objections to every hypothesis of a seditious Jesus.365 Nevertheless,
there are several problems with all that. First, the extant evidence for Jesus’
supposed association with toll collectors is scant and problematic indeed, as
the very scholars making those claims sometimes point out. There are only two
passages which actually report that Jesus did hold table fellowship with tax
collectors, and both can plausibly be regarded as editorial constructions rather
than historical accounts.366
Secondly, the Synoptic Gospels (the Fourth Gospel lacks references to this
matter) preserve traditions which suggest that Jesus held a disparaging view
regarding tax collectors. Sayings such as Mt. 5.47, 18.17 and 21.31–32 assume a
derogatory evaluation of them (the same disparaging evaluation as that held
by Jesus’ addressees), thereby not betraying a receptive attitude towards that
group.367

365 ‘The tax-gatherers, considered to be outside the pale by Jesus in Mt 18, 17b, are in other
passages (Mk 2, 15; Mt 11, 19; Lk 7, 34 and 18,9-14) represented as persons with whom
he entertained cordial relations… We are here provided with evidence that Jesus adopted
a friendly attitude towards a class of people whom “nationalistically-minded” Jews
despised’ (Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, p. 194); Hengel, War Jesus Revolutionär?,
pp. 19–21; Cullmann, Jesus und die Revolutionären, p. 63; Catchpole, ‘The Problem of the
Historicity of the Sanhedrin Trial’, p. 51; G.R. Edwards, Jesus and the Politics of Violence
(New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 58; Klassen, ‘Jesus and the Zealot Option’, pp. 16–17;
among many others.
366 For the ensuing discussion, see W.O. Walker, ‘Jesus and the Tax Collectors’, jbl 97 (1978),
pp. 221–38; Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, pp. 212–17.
367 Such traditions appear particularly, but not exclusively, in Matthew. See Walker, ‘Jesus and
the Tax Collectors’, pp. 224–29; ‘Lukas denkt letztlich nicht viel anders’ (O. Michel,
‘Telōnēs’, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament VIII [Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,
1969], p. 104).

96 Bermejo-Rubio
Thirdly, the references to intimate contacts between Jesus and tax collectors
take, for the most part, the form of accusations by his opponents, and the charge
does not seem to have been viewed as true in the sayings themselves. Mt. 11.18–19/
Lk. 7.33–34, which present Jesus as ‘a friend of tax collectors and sinners’, also pres-
ent him as ‘a glutton and a drunkard’;368 this last statement is, however, obviously
polemical, and does not seem to be reliable.369 Even clearer is the unreliability of
the accusation, in the same passage, that John the Baptist ‘has a demon’.
Fourthly, there are several possibilities for the basis of the charge, which do
not require extensive or intimate contact of Jesus with tax collectors. There
may have been something about Jesus’ eating and drinking habits which pro-
voked the charge, since he apparently was not overly punctilious regarding the
prescribed fasts; or perhaps Jesus did indeed refer to tax collectors in his
preaching, not in any positive manner but simply to emphasize the obstinacy
of his critics; or maybe the phrase ‘a friend of tax collectors and sinners’ was
used in somewhat the same disparaging way as ‘nigger-lover’ was used in cer-
tain periods in some regions of the United States; and so on.370
Fifthly, even if Jesus did associate intimately with tax collectors (this cannot
be ruled out, since, as an eschatological prophet, he aimed at encompassing all
Israel), such behaviour would not necessarily contradict his involvement in
anti-Roman ideology and resistance, as it is highly likely that he expected them
to renounce their previous commitments upon following him371 or joining his
band:372 they were regarded as standing in need of repentance. This is made
clear in the story about Zacchaeus, in which Jesus speaks of him as one of ‘the
lost’, and he does in fact repent.373
368 ‘It is not at all clear that these accusations are based upon fact’ (Walker, ‘Jesus and the Tax
Collectors’, p. 230).
369 On Jesus’ probable asceticism, see D.C. Allison Jesus of Nazareth, Millenarian Prophet
(Minneapolis, mn: Fortress, 1998), pp. 172–216; S.J. Joseph, ‘The Ascetic Jesus’, jshj 8 (2010),
pp. 146–81.
370 For these and other perceptive suggestions, see Walker, ‘Jesus and the Tax Collectors’,
pp. 230–31.
371 This is all the more probable if, such as Horsley claims, ‘there is no clear evidence that
they would have been viewed as “quisling” collaborators with the Romans in the context
of Jesus’ ministry’ (Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, p. 212).
372 Even if one of the Twelve was actually a tax collector (and this is problematic: see Walker,
‘Jesus and the Tax Collectors’, pp. 234–37), most probably he would have abandoned his
activity in order to follow Jesus.
373 ‘The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector and the story of Zacchaeus cannot,
therefore, be used to show that Jesus was sympathetic to or associated with tax collectors
without explicit “repentance” on their part’ (Walker, ‘Jesus and the Tax Collectors’, p. 229).

A close survey of the evidence proves that the issue of the association of
Jesus with tax collectors must, at least for the present, remain open, as also its
meaning. And this, in turn, and for the umpteenth time, cuts the ground from
under another usual objection against the picture of a seditionist Jesus.
7.5 Summary: The Lack of Compelling Objections

To sum up, I do not find that the rejection of the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus
in the guild is really justified on purely academic grounds: the arguments
which have been set out against it have not dealt it a fatal blow. Although the
piling up of objections is quite impressive at first glance, their inadequacy and
unconvincing nature becomes rather obvious when one takes the trouble to
think each of them through: they do not stand up to close examination. In
these circumstances, the high number of objections suggests not so much how
flimsy the hypothesis is as how great is the need of many scholars to convince
themselves of such alleged flimsiness.
As we have seen, one of the strategies that are used to oppose the hypothesis
consists in selecting some isolated passages and declaring that they rule out
any possibility of a seditious stance in Jesus (while, at the same time, other
material is overlooked or excluded). The sobering lesson of this survey is that
there seem not to be passages that, once closely scrutinized, clearly exclude
such a stance; at least I cannot think of any. And this means that we should not
tear asunder what the tradition holds together unless we have very good rea-
sons for doing so. Unless we can be absolutely sure that there is an insurmount-
able contradiction between prima facie conflicting statements, the usual
procedure consisting of rejecting the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus with a cri-
terion of consistency should be unveiled as simplistic and arbitrary.
Such an approach converges—at least partially—with that of social-mem-
ory theory, recently applied to Jesus research. Our sources portray a Jesus who
was involved in seditious claims and violent deeds, a Jesus who was not (and
made exhortations to non-violence), and a Jesus who confused individuals on
the matter. Instead of refusing a priori the authenticity of the passages appar-
ently denying seditious tendencies, we should consider the possibility that
these texts represent diverging refraction trajectories.374 In these circum-
stances, the general historical task becomes to consider ‘what could have hap-
pened in the past to produce the different interpretive trajectories that exist’.375
Instead of choosing one stream of tradition as a trustworthy source of historical
374 For the notion of ‘refraction trajectories’, see Le Donne, Historical Jesus, pp. 117, 129.
375 C. Keith, ‘Memory and Authenticity: Jesus Tradition and What Really Happened’, ZnW 102
(2011), pp. 155–77, here 174.

98 Bermejo-Rubio
Jesus material to the exclusion of the other at the outset, it is possible to posit a
historical Jesus capable of producing a particular contradictory history-of-
effects.376 If both the violent and quietistic features as transmitted in the
Gospels go back to the historical Jesus (because of a certain inconsistency in
the character, or because of a shift of attitude, or because they were not really
contradictory, or even because of the fact that his statements had different
addressees or adversaries in view…), it is easier to account for their presence in
the tradition.377 In this way, our reconstruction offers a more satisfactory expla-
nation for the various portrayals—or early Christian Jesus-memories—that
appear in the sources, without arbitrarily erasing material. Furthermore, it is
therefore easier to understand the later process of ascribing Jesus a purely ‘paci-
fist’ stance: it would not have involved a complete replacement of an allegedly
violent character by an entirely different one, but only a process of selection
and reinterpretation.
8 Conclusions and Further Remarks
The former survey has presented four main arguments supporting in a novel
way the old view of a seditious Jesus. First, the presence of a consistent pattern
of evidence in the New Testament, that enjoys the highest probability of histo-
ricity. Secondly, the great explanatory power of the hypothesis constructed in
the light of the pattern. Thirdly, the lack of a convincing unifying alternative,
and the far-fetched character of the atomizing approaches proposed. Fourthly,
the fact that every objection levelled against the hypothesis can be convinc-
ingly countered. These arguments, as a whole, are the four pillars of a solid
scholarly building. In this light, the widespread claim that the hypothesis of a
seditious Jesus—which, incidentally, does not reflect in the least the image of
376 This is the method followed by A. Le Donne, The Historiographical Jesus: Memory,
Typology, and the Son of David (Waco, tx: Baylor University Press, 2009); C. Keith, Jesus’
Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee (London: T&T Clark, 2011). Some
years ago, Hurtado also proposed that ‘instead of merely playing off one “variant” in the
Jesus tradition against another, we take all these variants as valuable evidence in the
reconstruction effort, and attempt a reconstruction that can explain the variants’
(L. Hurtado, ‘A Taxonomy of Recent Historical-Jesus Work’ in W.E. Arnal and M. Desjardins
[eds.], Whose Historical Jesus? [Waterloo: Wilfried Laurier University Press, 1997],
pp. 272–95, here p. 295).
377 In this sense, perhaps even within Jesus’ own lifetime there were contradictory and con-
fused perceptions of his stance towards Rome.

its proponents—has been dealt a fatal blow is not only wholly gratuitous, but
demonstrably false.
It would be unfair to claim that by proposing the image of a rebellious Jesus
we are straying far from the synoptic Jesus. I have nowhere resorted to the
Slavonic Josephus, neither to pagan anti-Christian authors (Celsus, Hierocles…)
hinting at Jesus as a rebel, neither to Jewish polemics, neither to suspicious
apocryphal texts. Moreover, the Jesus here portrayed is not a Jesus hidden
behind or beyond the sources. The building blocks of the Jesus figure we have
reconstructed come from the canonical Gospels themselves (occasionally sup-
plemented by other New Testament writings). It is the Christian Scriptures
that afford us with this view, not the ‘fanciful minds’ of Reimarus, Hennell,
Kautsky, Eisler, Brandon, Maccoby, and so on. Put otherwise, the seditious
Jesus is also a remembered Jesus.378 This, in turn, means that if Jesus was not a
seditionist, the Gospels—as far as they contain much evidence which is other-
wise unintelligible—would be desperately absurd and meaningless texts.
Unless the Gospels are tales told by an idiot, the involvement of Jesus in anti-
Roman activities is an inescapable corollary.
Maurice Casey once wrote: ‘A significant function of scholarship has been to
ward off anything too uncomfortable’.379 Nowhere is this remark so much to
the point as here. Although one should not make simplistic estimates of peo-
ple’s motives, one of the reasons of the fact that the hypothesis of a seditious
Jesus elicits allergic reactions in the guild is not hard to glimpse: it comes as
extremely upsetting for too many people, who see it as an affront to their most
cherished beliefs.380 The view of Jesus as a man sharing the ideology and val-
ues of many of his contemporaries gives the lie to the myth of his uniqueness.
The view of him as a nationalistic-minded Jew, showing partiality and not
being indifferent to the Roman control of his land, deals a fatal blow to the idea
of the universal Lord.381 The view of him spearheading an armed group
378 This means that the claim by Scot McKnight—in the wake of M. Kähler, L.T. Johnson,
and so many others—that the remembered Jesus is the church’s Jesus (‘Why the
Authentic Jesus is of No Use for the Church’, in C. Keith and A. Le Donne [eds.], Jesus,
History, and the Demise of Authenticity [London: T&T Clark, 2012], pp. 173–85) is a gross
oversimplification.
379 M. Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New
Testament Christology (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1991), p. 171.
380 This is all the more so because many Christians are deeply and sincerely committed to
non-violence, and they need a Jesus who embraced a similar nonviolent way of life.
381 Brandon was correct that in Christian thought the development of the doctrine of the
divinity of Christ and his role as the saviour of all mankind makes it hard to contemplate

100 Bermejo-Rubio
debunks the notion of the pacific and meek man of sorrows. The view that he
was actively involved in anti-Roman resistance makes exceedingly implausible
the idea that he went to his death voluntarily,382 and shatters to pieces the
moving story of a helpless victim. Key elements of the Christian myth seem
accordingly to collapse.
If the rejection of the hypothesis is an arbitrary procedure, suspension of
judgment is likewise unsatisfactory and intellectually disappointing. This
stance has been taken by some authors who state that Jesus’ record in relation
to Rome is ‘ambiguous and open to continuing debate and disagreement’.383 In
the light of the former survey, I would say this is not only untrue but also tragi-
cally misleading. The tragic aspect of such an attitude lies in the fact that it
presents itself with the appearance of scholarly rigour and prudence (‘Let us
not make hasty inferences on dark matters’), while it lets the minority of schol-
ars who are proponents of the hypothesis appear painfully dogmatic. The
unvarnished truth is, however, that when it is possible to know some things for
sure (and it has been argued that we can be reasonably sure that Jesus was
involved in seditious activities), the insistence that a question is still unsettled
implies abdicating responsibility, and taking a most unscientific stance.
Admittedly, one could perpetually discuss whether the Romans or the Jews or
a combined throng arrested Jesus, whether ‘Zealot’ as a nickname for a disciple
of Jesus is evidence of his belonging to an insurrectionist party or not, whether
the incident in the Temple was a minor or a major event, how large was the
crowd present in the ‘triumphal entry’, and so on. But what cannot be perpetu-
ally discussed—because it is an undeniable textual fact—is the existence of a
convergent pattern pointing to a seditious Jesus. What cannot be perpetually
discussed is that a part of the Gospel evidence has been tampered with. What
cannot be perpetually discussed is that the evangelists have shifted the blame
that he could have involved himself in Jewish domestic affairs, especially of a revolution-
ary kind (Jesus and the Zealots, p. 320).
382 Such as Maccoby remarked: ‘When Jesus entered Jerusalem in his final bid for power he
knew he was risking his life; but he did not aim at losing his life. He aimed at success, at
defeating the Romans and establishing the kingdom of God on earth’ (Revolution in
Judaea, pp. 135–36, italics original).
383 M. Bockmuehl, ‘Resistance and Redemption in the Jesus Tradition’, in M. Bockmuehl and
J. Carleton Paget, Redemption and Resistance: The Messianic Hopes of Jesus and Christians
in Antiquity (London: T&T Clark, 2009), pp. 65–77, here p. 74 (see also p. 68: ‘an issue that
remains unresolved’). This might be right only in the sense that, given that much Gospel
material has been tampered with, its interpretation is not straightforward; but it is wrong
as a description of what a critical and unprejudiced mind should infer from the whole
evidence.

to the Jews for an act for which the Romans had final authority, thereby incur-
ring a host of inconsistencies and historical improbabilities. What cannot be
perpetually discussed is that Jesus’ story has been de-politicized in the tradi-
tion. What cannot be perpetually discussed is that the most plausible explana-
tion of Jesus’ crucifixion is his involvement in seditious activities. All this
cannot be denied, unless one suffers from serious perception problems—or,
biblically expressed, unless one has ears not to hear.
A simple thought experiment suffices to grasp the extent of the mystifica-
tion prevailing in Jesus studies. What would happen if the referent of the avail-
able seditious material were any other first-century Jew? The answer is obvious.
If only half of the evidence which we have got about Jesus were evidence con-
cerning any other Jew of his age, the scholarly world would have long ago
unanimously reached the conclusion that he was an insurrectionist, and would
have excluded as the most improbable thing—not to say as ridiculous and
crazy—any idea of him being a sort of pacifist. The unfortunate fact, however,
is that the religious significance of Jesus for millions of our contemporaries
(including most of those who boast about doing historical research on him)
makes him a very different kettle of fish. History is still, for most in the guild,
the handmaiden of theology, to such an extent that hosts of scholars have not
removed—and presumably will never remove—the theological wax from
their ears. This suffices to explain why the hypothesis that would have other-
wise been deemed the most plausible one is deemed to be the most improba-
ble and outlandish.
This consistent repression prevents me from harbouring any illusions that
this time it will happen otherwise;384 any hope in this sense would be worse
than naïve. The view of Jesus as the Prince of Peace looms large in the con-
sciousness of humankind, and the scholarly realm is no exception.385 However,
at least I hope this paper will be helpful for honest and self-critical scholars to
realize that disparaging statements about the hypothesis of a seditious Jesus
(and about its proponents) are—if not the outcome of sheer ignorance—
nothing but wishful thinking and self-deceit, and that people daring to make
384 One could say what Christophe Batsch wrote on the Essenes’ ‘pacifism’: ‘Même chez les
meilleurs esprits, et les mieux formés à la critique historique, la force de l’idée reçue a
longtemps continué de s’imposer contre l’évidence documentaire’ (C. Batsch, ‘Le “paci-
fisme des esséniens”, un mythe historiographique’, Revue de Qumran 83 [2004], pp. 457–
68, here p. 457).
385 For instance, Matthew Black begins his discussion of Mt. 10.34–36 writing that this pas-
sage does not seem ‘a genuine utterance of the Prince of Peace’ (Black, ‘“Not peace but a
sword”’, p. 287).

102 Bermejo-Rubio
such statements should be forgiven, because they do not seem to know what
they are saying. This realization will be perhaps easier once one notices the
disturbing implications that the dismissal of the seditious material has in the
prevailing scholarship.
A first implication is for the recoverable image of Jesus himself. Many peo-
ple seem to think that keeping Jesus away from rebellious claims is the only
means of safeguarding a high estimate of him from a moral and spiritual per-
spective. This is, however, rather nonsensical to start with. From the stand-
point of a first-century Jew who was not a quisling there was nothing morally
reprehensible in the activity of those seeking to rid their nation of Roman
hegemony. But there is something far more worrying. As we have remarked,
mainstream scholarship posits a yawning chasm between the longings and
hopes of Jesus and those of his followers and disciples, and often argues that
Jesus was wholly misunderstood in a political sense. For instance, the claim
that the meaning of the abrupt end of the scene referring to the swords
(Lk. 22.38b) is that Jesus interrupts the dialogue, implies that he does not
explain to his disciples his true thinking, thereby giving rise to all kind of con-
fusion and compromising actions. The same could be said on the triumphal
entry, the episode with the crowd in John 6, and so on. The unavoidable corol-
lary of all this is not only that Jesus was an exceedingly incompetent teacher
surrounded by very incompetent disciples (a disturbing idea indeed), but also
that he raised hopes which he did not expect to satisfy.386 If political expecta-
tions and hopes were excited by Jesus, but he turned firmly away from them,
then either he suffered from a degree of lack of realism bordering on autism,
or—what is even worse—he consciously brought disappointment and was a
kind of unscrupulous deceiver. Although we have no reasons to think so,387
this is the unavoidable inference that is to be drawn from the prevailing claims.
A second disturbing implication refers to the—explicit or implicit—moral
judgments on many contemporaries of Jesus. Although nowadays scholars
tend not to make disparaging and slanderous comments on the Roman and—
especially—the Jewish authorities which have been repeated parrot-fashion
386 Maccoby critically observed that, according to the prevailing view, ‘he was raising politi-
cal hopes which he had no intention of satisfying, and inducing the people of Jerusalem
to engage in political acts for which they would have to pay severe penalties’ (Maccoby,
Revolution in Judaea, p. 174).
387 Even if there are no signs that Jesus was the best pedagogue in Late Antiquity, and even if
there are clear signs that he was not lucid enough, there are no indications that he was
characterized by such ineptitude.

for centuries, the reluctance to recognize Jesus’ seditious stance amounts to

blaming those rulers with cynical malevolence and blatant injustice.388 In
order to exonerate a man, hosts of them are blackened. But not only the ruling
class is the victim of the de-politicized view of the Galilean preacher, as it is
proved by the current treatment of the Jewish resistance movements when
these are compared with Jesus. For instance, William Klassen distinguishes
their members from Jesus referring to the alleged radical difference the latter
made: ‘The clearest evidence of this is his emphasis on love for one’s enemies.
No Zealot ever taught this; they died with a curse on their lips’.389 Leaving aside
the true meaning of Jesus’ ‘love for one’s enemies’, one wonders what sources
on Jewish rebels modern scholars have handled, or what reasoning they use, so
as to be able to make such bold judgments. Who knows what those people
thought and felt? Who knows how on earth those people died? Were all of
them nothing but puppets and automata, all the same stuff? It is striking that
the passionate wish to defend at all costs Jesus’ idiosyncrasy goes along with a
complete indifference towards human complexity in virtually all other cases.
This brutal oversimplification, along with the contemptuous moral assess-
ment of so many unknown people, is unmistakable proof that too often the
self-styled ‘historical Jesus scholarship’ is indiscernible from theological apolo-
getics, and it is also proof that extremely serious ethical issues are at stake
when sharp bias takes the place of sober historical work. In the wake of the
evangelists, modern scholarship goes on, up to the present, fuelling anti-
Judaism and sowing all kind of prejudices.390
A third implication concerns the reliability of the current reconstructions in
Jesus scholarship. As we have argued, the hypothesis of the seditious Jesus lets
us make sense of all the material in the simplest and most comprehensible
way: Occam’s razor makes this hypothesis compelling in a scientific context.
The rejection of the hypothesis has, accordingly, disastrous epistemological
consequences. On the one hand, it means that in crucial issues the overwhelm-
ing majority of researchers heavily and slavishly rely on the mythical and
inconsistent story of the canonical Gospels, according to which Jesus was
388 They preferred ‘expediency to honor and convenience to justice’ (Bryan, Render to Caesar,
p. 62).
389 Klassen, ‘Jesus and the Zealot Option’, p. 21.
390 For instance, Giorgio Jossa repeats, time and time again, that Jesus made a frontal attack
to Judaism: ‘un attacco frontale alla spiritualità giudaica’ (Gesù e i movimenti di libera-
zione, p. 319). This underlying anti-Judaism is also perceptible in quite a few articles of the
volume edited by Bammel and Moule, Jesus and the Politics of his Day (not only in Merkel’s
‘The Opposition between Jesus and Judaism’, pp. 129–44).

104 Bermejo-Rubio
crucified despite being a politically harmless man for Rome (and despite hav-
ing been deemed innocent by the Roman prefect!).391 In view of this reliance,
it should be obvious that sober impartiality, scholarly rigour and soundness are
conspicuous by their absence. In fact, most reconstructions of Jesus, however
seemingly sophisticated and erudite, by overlooking his seditious dimension
offer a drastically distorted image of him. On the other hand, the rejection of
the existence of violence in Jesus’ words and deeds performs a sort of violence
of its own in the hermeneutical realm. It is that violence that—an exemplifica-
tion of the ‘return of the repressed’ phenomenon—surfaces and becomes per-
ceptible in the scholarly contradictions and inconsistencies we have surveyed
above. The pervasiveness of such inconsistencies in modern scholarship would
be exceedingly funny were it not so tragic, and should give much food for
thought.
Last but not least, the consistent repression of the hypothesis over centuries
might contribute to make us understand in a clearer way the history of Jesus
research.392 Forty years ago, Samuel Brandon thought that a notable advance
had been achieved, as it was ‘generally recognized by most of the critics that
the extant evidence concerning Christian Origins is of such a nature histori-
cally that other interpretations, besides the traditional one, can be legitimately
drawn’.393 I am afraid this great scholar was too optimistic. The history of Jesus
research unmistakably proves that the sadly foreseeable fate of any view of
Jesus which significantly diverges from the conventional conception is that of
being repressed as much as possible (along with its corollaries) in mainstream
scholarship.394 Admittedly, after two and a half centuries, outright dismissal of
391 Tendentiousness and bias of the Gospels are of course recognized in scholarship, but
these limits of our sources are too often minimized or virtually forgotten when it comes
to reconstructing Jesus’ career.
392 The widespread story of the ‘three quests’ is nothing but bogus. See S.E. Porter, The Criteria
for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 28–62; D.C. Allison, ‘Secularizing Jesus’, in
idem, Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and its Interpreters (New York: T&T
Clark, 2005), pp. 1–26; F. Bermejo-Rubio, ‘The Fiction of the “Three Quests”: An Argument
for Dismantling a Dubious Historiographical Paradigm’, jshj 7 (2009), pp. 211–53.
393 S.G.F. Brandon, ‘Jesus and the Zealots: Aftermath’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library
Manchester 54.1 (1971), pp. 47–66, at p. 51.
394 James Crossley has recently argued that the heavy dominance of confessional views in the
New Testament field might have prevented important advances in the historical study of
Christian origins; see J.G. Crossley, Why Christianity Happened: A Sociohistorical Account
of Christian Origins (26–s50 ce) (Louisville, ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006),
pp. xiii-xiv.

Jesus’ involvement in the politics of his time is hard to carry out. But let us not
deceive ourselves. At best, only partial endorsement of this aspect takes place.
Just as Jesus is considered to be ‘Jewish, but not that Jewish’, ‘apocalyptic, but
not that apocalyptic’, a fortiori he is deemed to be ‘revolutionary, but not that
revolutionary’. There seem to be limits—such as the acknowledgment of the
presence of violence, swords and blood in Jesus’ tradition—that must not be
crossed. In these circumstances, we should not be particularly optimistic about
future progress in Jesus studies. Just as until now, the hypothesis will go on
being the object of—conscious or unconscious, total or partial—repression.
Good history seeks the truth regardless of how it makes us feel, but too many
in the field seem to be prone to opposing embarrassing ideas at all costs, even
at the expense of consistency and plausibility. As to the minority of secular
historians in the guild, they smile at the simultaneously disheartening and
amusing sight of a field swarming with hoary howlers, but they are not embar-
rassed in the least by the most compelling results of centuries’ long research.
After all, even if one feels a deep sympathy both for Jesus and for those who
venerate him, according to the Latin motto, magis amica veritas: a better friend
is truth.

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journal for the study of the historical jesus

Jesus and the Anti-Roman Resistance

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/17455197-01202001

anti-Roman resistance – arguments – convergence patterns – Gospels – historical

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

religions with disparate orientations.1 Therefore, unlike what some uncriti-

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

commends itself to many.5 That Jesus preached nonviolence remains virtually

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

Christian-dominated field of Jesus research is too often distorted by theologi-

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

assuming that ‘the evidence of the Gospels is ex hypothesi contaminated’,12

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

Thirdly, even in argumentative contexts, the rejection of the hypothesis

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

A fourth reason spurring me on to tackle again a much-debated issue is the

2 Evidence of a Seditious Stance: Detecting a Pattern

While the presence of the numerous inconsistencies and improbabilities with

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journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

23) The Gospels witness an antagonistic relationship between Jesus and

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journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

3 On the Historicity of the Pattern

3.1 The Reliability of the Convergent Patterns

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

criteria, the overall conception of formulating a set of criteria would depend—

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

those general impressions: otherwise, the Gospels should be completely

3.2 A Truly Embarrassing Cluster

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counter to them.60 There seems to be no particular reason why this material

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

embarrassing for the first Christian Jews.72 Nevertheless, the reasoning

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journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

rewording,78 and/or its (re-)location in an altered narrative context, to the

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Another passage which seems to have been truncated or obscured is Lk.

81 On the swords, see infra, nn. 303–308.

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journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

3.3 Contextual Plausibility

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journal for the study of the historical jesus 12 (2014) 1-105

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4 Interpreting the Pattern

The pattern we have surveyed is constituted by a set of data which is, on

4.1 Explicit Meanings and Implications

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