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Theophilus, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and called as a witness to his human nature after having investigated everything from the very first.

Let anyone who has ears to hear listen

Across the span of history, few quests have been as fruitless as the one for the so-called “historical Jesus”.  Since the eighteenth century, academics have ambitiously set out to separate the New Testament myths from the first-century Jewish man. This venture has come in three distinct waves, each utilizing its own criteria and giving rise to some of the great heroes of Biblical criticism—names such as Strauss, Schweitzer, Bultmann, and Sanders. Yet, despite these great minds bringing the human Jesus into closer focus, time and again his figure seems to pass through our midst. Under scrutiny, none of the portraits offered by scholars are entirely satisfactory; the Jesus found at each journey’s end has been merely an illusion. As Schweitzer (1911) so astutely observed, “…it was not only each epoch that found its reflection in Jesus; each individual created Him in accordance with his own character” (10).

Indeed, the evidence for the historical Jesus (or “HJ”) is so sparse and contradictory, that the concept of “Jesus Mythicism” has been revitalized in recent years. This idea has been demonstrated comprehensively by Robert M. Price (2003) and Richard Carrier (2014), finding support amongst a minority of scholars. The mythicist argument posits that there was no historical Jesus at all and that Jesus Christ was originally a god (or angel) who was eventually euhemerized and placed on earth in the context of the Gospels, themselves being mostly fiction. Although this position has not garnered widespread support, its plausibility highlights some of the major problems that scholars have wrestled with in their work. An inordinate amount of weight has been put on the shoulders of our few reliable sources for the era, chief among them the letters of Paul the Apostle and the works of the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus.

Perhaps it is time to offload a portion of their burden, however. New archaeological findings in recent decades have signaled that we may be on the precipice of a new quest, one which is fundamentally different from and yet builds upon the extensive scholarship of the previous incarnations. These discoveries will be familiar to those in the field, but it is my opinion that, much like Christ fooling the archons during his descent through the heavens, their true significance has gone largely unrecognized.

The first discovery to which I refer is the Dead Sea Scrolls. For decades, these ancient documents have been steeped in controversy, a fact undoubtedly proliferated by the enormous secrecy involved in their initial translation. The question of what they might have to say about the historical Jesus has loomed large over scholars and clergy alike. Alas, most mainstream experts will now date the majority of the texts to the first century BCE (Vermes 2011, 14). Thus, at most, they are said to give us a context; insight into the landscape of Jewish ideas extant in first-century Palestine, which Christianity eventually sprouted from (24).

The other piece of evidence we will discuss is a tomb discovered in East Jerusalem in 1980. Labeled the “Talpiot Tomb” after the neighborhood of its location, the site was highly publicized, and the subject of a documentary film produced by James Cameron (Jacobovici 2007). On the surface, such ballyhoo was undoubtedly warranted, as the contents of the tomb were startling indeed: first-century Jewish ossuaries (bone boxes) containing the physical remains of individuals who seemed straight out of the New Testament. Inscribed on the surfaces of the ossuaries were names such as Maria, Jesus son of Joseph, and Judas son of Jesus. Despite the profound nature of the inscriptions, the academic community approached these artifacts with thorough skepticism. Unlike the James ossuary, which was made public in the decade prior, the authenticity of these discoveries was never in doubt. They were discovered in situ and all paleographical and compositional testing proved that they were truly from the first century. The debate instead has centered on the names, which were so common at the time, that statistically, the chances of this being the final resting place for Jesus of Nazareth and his family are thought to be quite low (Cost 2007).

In this study, I will demonstrate that mainstream scholarship has for the most part incorrectly dismissed the arguments which directly link these two discoveries to the historical Jesus. In doing so, I make the bold claim that we are closer than ever before to uncovering the man behind the myth and that, unlike other portraits of the HJ, what we find is a human being that neither I nor academics at large would necessarily like. The core of my argument boils down to four basic pillars. The assertions I make are as follows:

• The Dead Sea Scrolls mention Jesus, but not in a positive light. He is dubbed, “The Liar,” “The Scoffer,” and “The Wicked Priest.”
• Flavius Josephus also mentions Jesus under the moniker of “Judas the Galilean,” a teacher who encouraged his fellow Jews to revolt rather than be taxed and subjected to Roman rule.
• The Talpiot Tomb was the legitimate resting place of Jesus’s earthly remains, which were contained in the ossuary labeled, “Judas son of Jesus.”
• Judas/Jesus was not just a common peasant but a descendent of the Hasmonean royal family and a relative of King Herod the Great, possibly his grandson or great-nephew.

I am not the first to suggest many of these ideas, and all credit is given to those whose work I am building on. I am to my knowledge, however, the first to put these pieces of the puzzle together in this specific arrangement. In doing so, I will also present some novel arguments which lend support to this new reconstruction of the man called “Christ”; the man who was crucified as “King of the Jews.”  In the remainder of this post, I will lay out a mere portion of the primary evidence which lends credence to this admittedly extraordinary claim.

 

Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, See I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’” John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mark 1:2-4 [NRSV])

And in the age of wrath three hundred and ninety years after he had given them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, He visited them, and He caused a plant root to spring from Israel and Aaron to inherit His Land and to prosper on the good things of His earth. And they perceived their iniquity and recognized that they were guilty men, yet for twenty years they were like blind men groping for the way. And God observed their deeds, that they sought Him with a whole heart and He raised for them a Teacher of Righteousness to guide them in the way of His heart. (CD I, 5-15)

In these two descriptions, we find a common theme of repentance: of admitting one’s guilt and turning back to God. Additionally, both excerpts use “The Way” as terminology for their movement, something that we also find among early Christians (Acts 9:2).

The philosophy present in the Damascus Covenant also shares commonalities to Josephus’s passage on John the Baptist in Antiquities of the Jews:

John, that was called the Baptist…was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God. (A.J. bk. 18, chap. 5, sec. 2)

They shall set aside holy things according to the exact teaching concerning them. They shall love each man his brother as himself; they shall succour the poor, the needy, the stranger. (CD VI, 20)

Here we find two riffs on the “Golden Rule” famously espoused by Jesus in the gospels. Also notice the emphasis on “righteousness,” a quality valued above all others in the DSS, to the point that their leader was dubbed, “The Teacher of Righteousness.” In my present synthesis, this teacher may be solidly identified with John the Baptist. This idea was first brought forward by Robert Eisler (1931) and expanded on by Barbara Thiering (1992). Although it garnered some media attention at the time, Thiering’s reconstruction was largely rejected by scholars, with one reviewer sneering, “This book scarcely deserves to be taken seriously” (Prockter 1993, 181). Admittedly, Dr. Thiering went beyond the evidence in some of her assertions, but her basic identifications of the main players mentioned in the Scrolls should not be so easily dismissed. As Robert M. Price (n.d.) cautions us, “Though many will feel they cannot accept most of her suggestions, one must not consign them all to a premature grave.”

Of course, the first objection raised by experts in the Scrolls will be the issue of dating. The Scrolls appear to have been composed over a period between 200 BCE and 100 CE (Wise, Abegg, and Cook 2005, 15) However, the issue of greatest interest for our study is the question of when the group’s leader, the Teacher of Righteousness, was active. The dating of a particular scroll, the Habakkuk Pesher, has been used to suggest that the Teacher arose in either the second or early first century BCE (Atwill and Braunheim 2004, 148). We will explore in-depth how this conclusion is arrived at in a future entry of this blog. For now, suffice it to say that scientific analysis has proved inconclusive, and disagreement on key issues prevails even among mainstream academics. For us to proceed in the current discussion, however, let us consider that several of the most notable sectarian documents, including the Community Rule (36 BCE-81 CE), Psalms Pesher (29 CE-81 CE), and the Messianic Apocalypse (39 BCE-66 CE), can be scientifically dated to the first century CE based on radiocarbon analysis (Doudna 1998, 469). Granting in the very least, a possibility, that some of the scrolls may have been written during and after the time of Jesus, let us turn to what Robert Eisenman has labeled the “internal evidence” (Atwill and Braunheim 2004, 150).

To begin with the obvious, both the Scrolls sectarians and the followers of John as depicted in the Gospels practiced ritual immersion aka baptism. Furthermore, this baptism, in contrast to the initiation ritual of the early Christians, carried a slightly different theological significance. Whereas Christians believed in the power of the waters to wash away the sins of the subject, both John’s baptism as described in Josephus, and the immersion of the Scrolls Sectarians were performed for bodily purification and carried the prerequisite of righteousness, as defined by strict Torah observance (Vermes 2011, 81-82).

for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. (A.J. 18.5.2)

They shall not enter the water to partake of the pure Meal of the men of holiness, for they shall not be cleansed unless they turn from their wickedness: for all who transgress His word are unclean. (1QS V, 10-15)

For it is through the spirit of true counsel concerning the ways of man that all his sins shall be expiated…He shall be cleansed from all his sins by the spirit of holiness…and his iniquity shall be expiated by the spirit of uprightness and humility. And when his flesh is sprinkled with purifying water and sanctified by cleansing water, it shall be made clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God. (1QS III, 6-9)

These commonalities might be brushed aside as mere coincidence, but the Sitz im Leben of John’s ministry and the Scrolls Sectarians also overlaps. While there is some disagreement among scholars, the Scrolls Sect is often presented as having dwelled at the settlement of Qumran, in the region of the Dead Sea, until around the year 70 CE (Wise, Abegg, and Cook 2005, 21). That Qumran served as a permanent residence for the sect has been called into question in recent years, however (Stacey and Doudna 2013). The Scrolls themselves describe the group as residing in various camps (CD XIII, 1-5). This would align with John’s preaching in the “wilderness” (Mark 1:4). Regardless of whether or not the Scrolls were written at the Qumran settlement, given the location of their deposit, it can be safely presumed that their authors lived in and around Judea, close to the Jordan River, in the early first century CE.

But there are even more internal clues that point us towards the identification of the group and its leader. In the Damascus Covenant, a document which outlines the history of the sect, the Teacher of Righteousness is described as having been “gathered in” (i.e., killed) about 40 years before a group of traitors, described as “men of violence/war,” were completely annihilated.

From the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the end of all the men of war who deserted to the Liar there shall pass about forty years. (CD MS. B II, 10-15)

This very closely matches the timeframe between the death of John the Baptist and the defeat of the Sicarii forces by the Romans in 74 CE. In the Psalms Pesher, the rebels’ defeat is credited to the “violent among the nations” (4Q171 II, 15-20). Elsewhere, the latter group are defined as the “Kittim,” a codename that has been soundly identified as referring to the Romans (Vermes 2011, 165). With these events as a backdrop, the apocalyptic nature of the sect is more easily understood, as the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of God were, for many Jews, harbingers of the end times.

Having identified John the Baptist with the Teacher of Righteousness, we now have all the evidence we need to identify his antagonist, known variously as “The Spouter of Lies,” “The Scoffer,” and “The Wicked Priest.” Various historical figures have been suggested for this notorious character. While Wise, Abegg, and Cook (2005) nominate Hyrcanus II, Geza Vermes (2011) states that he is “probably Jonathan Maccabeus” (221). As opposed to some who view the “Scoffer,” “Liar,” and “Wicked Priest” as separate characters, I side with Vermes in viewing the multiple codenames as referring to a single individual (54). This practice is in line with how the “Teacher of Righteousness” is given alternate monikers such as “The Teacher of the Community” and simply “The Priest.” The context of the passages helps determine the nickname used in each instance. The term “scoffer” is used in reference to this individual’s attitude towards various Jewish laws, most notably purity regulations and Sabbath observance. Remarkably, these are some of the very issues at hand between Jesus and his adversaries presented in the Gospels.

Although it is perhaps counterintuitive for some to view Jesus as a villain, it should come as no surprise that there were some in his day who hated him. The Gospels themselves tell us as much; animosity between Jesus and “the scribes” is a running theme. While it is common to blame Paul for shunning the Torah, while imagining Jesus as strictly orthodox, there is little evidence that this was the case. Eisenman (1997) has concluded that James the brother of Jesus, with his meticulous Torah observance, is an indicator of what types of beliefs Jesus himself held. Conversely, the Gospels testify to a Jesus who was critical of many traditional regulations held within Judaism. Viewed from this angle, we can make better sense of the practices of both Jesus’s early disciples and the group of rebels who splintered off from the original Scrolls Congregation.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles…I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Gal. 2:11-14 [NRSV])

They have not kept apart from the people and have willfully rebelled by walking in the ways of the wicked of whom God said, “Their wine is the venom of serpents, the cruel poison (or head) of asps” (Deut. xxxii, 33). The serpents are the kings of the peoples and their wine is their ways. And the head of asps is the chief of the kings of Greece who came to wreak vengeance upon them. (CD VIII)

They have forsaken God and walked according to the decrees of [the Gentiles] (4Q167 Frs. 7-9)

Rather than taking the movement in the opposite direction, Paul built on the philosophy which Jesus and Cephas had already started. Under Paul’s system, the bounds of the Torah were stretched past their breaking point. In some verses, Paul seems to say that, to one with understanding, not even the eating of meat sacrificed to idols was off-limits, as “we know that ‘no idol in the world really exists’” (1 Cor. 8:4 [NRSV]). “Food will not bring us close to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do” (1 Cor. 8:8 [NRSV]). It is only because of the faulty perception of others that Paul cautions against it (1 Cor. 8:9-11). Compare the Hosea Pesher, which observes the sect’s adversaries (seemingly) celebrating the feast days of the Gentiles, when such meals would surely be served (4Q166 II, 15-17). From this perspective, James the brother of Jesus was attempting to reign things back in once he assumed control of the movement. He saw Moses’ law being broken left and right.

The commonalities between the Jesus of the Gospels and the enemy of the Scrolls Community do not end there by any means. On the contrary, the parallels are almost too numerous to list. Presented here are but a few examples:

Both Jesus and the Wicked Priest were accused of being drunks:

Interpreted, this concerns the Priest whose ignominy was greater than his glory. For he did not circumcise the foreskin of his heart, and he walked in the ways of drunkenness that he might quench his thirst… (1QpHab XI, 10-15)

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Matt. 11:19 [NRSV])

Both Jesus and the followers of “The Spouter” favored people traditionally seen as sinful over the religious establishment of their day:

And they justified the wicked and condemned the just… (CD I, 15-20)

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of Heaven. (Matt. 23:13 [NRSV])

When the scribes and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Mark 2:16-17 [NRSV])

The Wicked Priest was accused of exploiting others, living in luxury, and neglecting Jewish purity laws. Some of Jesus’s actions could also be viewed in this manner:

…and he took the wealth of the peoples, heaping sinful iniquity upon himself. And he lived in the ways of abominations amidst every unclean defilement. (1QpHab VIII, 10-15)

And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating at the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:37-39 [NRSV])

But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor.” (Mark 14:4-5 [NRSV])

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” (Matt. 15:1-2 [NRSV])

One of the most notable episodes mentioned in the Scrolls involves a dispute over fasting and Sabbath observance. Of course, Jesus was also notorious for his views on these laws.

And at the time appointed for rest, for the Day of Atonement, he appeared before them to confuse them, and to cause them to stumble on the Day of Fasting, their Sabbath of repose. (1QpHab XI, 5-10)

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they?” (Mark 2:18-19 [NRSV])

One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food?” (Mark 2:23-25 [NRSV])

The Wicked Priest was said to have performed an act of sacrilege in the Jerusalem Temple. This may be an allusion to Jesus’s “cleansing” the Temple, effectively shutting down the flow of sacrifices to Yahweh.

Because of the blood of the city and the violence done to the land: interpreted, the city is Jerusalem where the Wicked Priest committed abominable deeds and defiled the Temple of God. (1QpHab XII, 5-10)

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. (Mark 11:15-16 [NRSV])

Demons are blamed for the actions of both Jesus and the enemies of the Scrolls Sect. While the specific name for the demon varies, both are notably based on the Canaanite god, Baal.

They who bore the yoke of my testimony have been led astray by [teachers of lies] …A counsel of Belial is in their heart [and in accordance with] their wicked design they wallow in sin. (1QH XIV (formerly VI), 15-25)

Every man who preaches apostasy under the dominion of the spirits of Belial shall be judged according to the law relating to those possessed by a ghost or familiar spirit. (CD XII, 1-5)

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” (Mark 3:22 [NRSV])

Finally, the Hosea Pesher provides two intriguing parallels. The first concerns language of eating and being filled. The more shocking statement, however, is that the people who lead the traitors astray were seen as gods by their followers. In the New Testament, not only is Jesus proclaimed divine by certain people but so are Paul and Barnabas!

Interpreted, this means that [they ate and] were filled, but they forgot God…and they listened to those who led them astray. They revered them, and in their blindness they feared them as though they were gods. (4Q166 II, 5-10)

And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men. (Mark 6:42-44 [NRSV])

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matt. 16:15-16 [NRSV])

Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:48-49 [NRSV])

When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” (Acts 14:11 [NRSV])

Modern Biblical historians tend to agree on few things, but most will concede on the basic fact that Jesus was likely baptized by John, thus giving the Jesus movement a certain affiliation with that of John. In the fourth Gospel, we are told that Jesus’s first two disciples, including Peter’s brother, Andrew, were originally followers of the Baptist (John 1:40). What we often neglect when imagining the relationship of John and Jesus is the potential for hostility between these competing Holy Men. The Gospels try desperately to have us believe that John and Jesus were the best of friends—cousins even. But behind this revisionist history, there remain echoes of potentially serious disputes, such as the above-quoted disagreement over fasting. What the Scrolls seem to suggest is that these two figures had no small beef with one another, but eventually became mortal enemies. The Wicked Priest is described as attempting to “swallow up,” or murder, the Teacher of Righteousness, although it seems as if this did not come to pass (4Q171 IV, 5-10). John resented Jesus’s turning his back on the Torah, and Jesus could not have anyone stand in his way, jeopardizing his messianic ambitions.

As embarrassing as this rivalry was to early Christians, church historians were unable to completely bury its traces. The Mandeans (or, as they call themselves, Nazoreans) claim to be the surviving descendants of John’s sect and retain a bitter view towards Jesus, one which can only be explained by tracing their origins to a “pre-Christian, Jewish-Gnostic sectarianism” (Price 2006, 4). This ancient grudge is exemplified in the following passage:

John spoke, saying to Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, “You have lied to Jews, and you have deceived men, the priests. You cut seed off from men, and labor and pregnancy from women. You loosened the Sabbath that Moses ordained in Jerusalem. You lied to them with a horn and played different things with a trumpet.” (Mandean Book of John 30:5-10)

The ultimate fate of The Wicked Priest as described in the pesharim was not a happy one. He was “delivered into the hands of his enemies” (1QpHab IX, 5-10). His judgment was executed by “the violent of the nations” (4Q171 IV, 10-15).  His oppressors tortured him, taking “vengeance upon his body of flesh” (1QpHab IX, 1-5). Rather than atoning for the sins of mankind, the writers of the Scrolls viewed his gruesome death as a divine punishment. Seemingly abandoned by God, the Wicked Priest died in a state of despair.

…he might be humbled by means of a destroying scourge, in bitterness of soul, because he had done wickedly to his elect. (1QpHab IX, 10-15)

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)

If there is anything that has been firmly established regarding the historical Jesus, it is that he was crucified by Pontius Pilate—a punishment reserved for those judged guilty of sedition against Rome. This fact leads us to the next of our pillars.

 

Jesus as Judas the Galilean

Yet was there one Judas, a Gaulonite, of a city whose name was Gamala, who, taking with him Sadduc, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt, who both said that this taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery, and exhorted the nation to assert their liberty; as if they could procure them happiness and security for what they possessed, and an assured enjoyment of a still greater good, which was that of the honor and glory they would thereby acquire for magnanimity. They also said that God would not otherwise be assisting to them, than upon their joining with one another in such councils as might be successful, and for their own advantage; and this especially, if they would set about great exploits, and not grow weary in executing the same; so men received what they said with pleasure, and this bold attempt proceeded to a great height. All sorts of misfortunes also sprang from these men, and the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree; one violent war came upon us after another, and we lost our friends which used to alleviate our pains; there were also very great robberies and murder of our principal men. This was done in pretense indeed for the public welfare, but in reality for the hopes of gain to themselves; whence arose seditions, and from them murders of men, which sometimes fell on those of their own people, (by the madness of these men towards one another, while their desire was that none of the adverse party might be left,) and sometimes on their enemies; a famine also coming upon us, reduced us to the last degree of despair, as did also the taking and demolishing of cities; nay, the sedition at last increased so high, that the very temple of God was burnt down by their enemies’ fire. Such were the consequences of this, that the customs of our fathers were altered, and such a change was made, as added a mighty weight toward bringing all to destruction, which these men occasioned by their thus conspiring together; for Judas and Sadduc, who excited a fourth philosophic sect among us, and had a great many followers therein, filled our civil government with tumults at present, and laid the foundations of our future miseries, by this system of philosophy, which we were before unacquainted withal, concerning which I will discourse a little, and this the rather because the infection which spread thence among the younger sort, who were zealous for it, brought the public to destruction. (A.J. 18.1.1)

Rather than grapple with why Josephus would have chosen to omit mention of Jesus and Christianity, a hugely popular messianic movement, we see in this passage the Jewish historian giving proper treatment to exactly such a movement. As mentioned, Josephus left this sect unnamed. He viewed it in a thoroughly negative manner, like a disease, and did not wish to unwillingly promote it by writing of it in excessive detail. Although many have mistakenly jumped to the conclusion that they called themselves Zealots, nowhere does Josephus specifically label the followers of Judas as such (Lendering 2020). In some sections, it seems as though they were called “Sicarii,” although we do not know whether this was a self-designation or a title coined by those who feared them and the curved blades, or sicae, from which the name stemmed (Brandon 1967, 39). They may have called themselves Galileans (54). Of course, we know from the book of Acts that the label “Christians” first started in Antioch. Before this, their movement was perhaps referred to as “The Way,” harkening back to the Scrolls Community, and their adherents called “Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5), or even “Galileans” (Mark 14:70).

Josephus tells us that his discourse on Judas’s philosophy would be but brief because he found its adherents to be the primary instigators of the disastrous Jewish revolt against Rome—the one which culminated in the destruction of the Temple of God in 70 CE. This is the very prophecy that was cited against Jesus in his hearing with the High Priest.

Some stood up and gave false testimony against him, saying, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” (Mark 14:57-58 [NRSV])

When we identify this Galilean, Judas, as the historical Jesus, all the difficulties scholars have had with harmonizing the proposed inconsequential Christ of Josephus with the Jesus of the gospels are swept away. The Gospel Jesus grows so famous that he can scarcely retire to his own house without being swarmed (Mark 2: 1-2). Are we to take such anecdotes as sheer embellishment or should we not look towards the history we have? Judas, like Jesus, was described as primarily a teacher. Josephus calls Judas a “cunning sophister” (B.J. 2.17.8). We might compare this occupation to Jesus being known as a “Rabbi” (Mark 11:21 [NRSV]). On the other hand, “sophist” could also be used as a derogatory label, implying the person was a sort of trickster, a wordsmith who was able to use their mastery of argumentation for less than pure motives (Taylor and Lee 2020). Some of Jesus’s retorts to the scribes and Pharisees could surely be interpreted this way. For example, we might recall how Jesus replied when asked by what authority he did his works (Mark 11:27-33). Lucian of Samosata even refers to Jesus as “that crucified sophist” (Lucian 13).

The word “sophist” comes from the Greek word for wisdom, sophia, and in the Testimonium Flavianum, we read of Jesus being a “wise man,” as if the forger was knowingly playing off the Judas passage. In fact, Eusebius or whoever it was, uses the same language in describing the reception garnered by Judas and by Jesus!

“So men received what they said with pleasure.” (A.J. 18.1.1)

“…for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.” (A.J. 18.3.3)

Many scholars have endeavored to reconstruct the “original” Jesus passage in Josephus’s Antiquities before the Christian interpolator got his hands on the text. Perhaps it has been staring us in the face all along. Meanwhile, the Testimonium Flavianum appears in the spot where we would have read about the death of Judas—during the reign of Pontius Pilate (although I am not necessarily saying that Josephus ever wrote such a passage—he tells us bluntly that he does not wish to discuss Judas in much detail).

The only other source we have on Judas the Galilean is the canonical book of Acts. There, Luke tells us that Judas was killed, and his followers dispersed in a very similar way to how Jesus’s disciples initially abandoned him upon his arrest.

“He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered.” (Acts 5:37 [NRSV]; Luke on Judas the Galilean)

“All of them deserted him and fled.” (Mark 14:50 [NRSV]; The arrest of Jesus)

Based on Acts, it has been commonly held that the tax rebellion initiated by Judas was short-lived and that he perished around the year 6 CE, the year Josephus tells us this ideology sprouted up (Jewish Virtual Library n.d.). The truth is that we have no reason to assume this. On the contrary, if we are to take Josephus at his word that the Manahem of the Jewish War was Judas’s son (and not his grandson as some unnecessarily speculate), then it would lead us to believe that Judas survived well beyond the first decade of the first century CE (B.J. 2.17.8). Nowhere in any text are we told when Judas of Galilee died. In Acts, the precise details of Judas’s death are not shared, but we can assume that as a revolutionary, if he were captured alive, he would have been crucified. As fate would have it, Josephus tells us that Judas’s sons, named Jacob and Simon, would suffer that same form of execution—the same death as Jesus (A.J. 20.5.2).

We are also nowhere explicitly told of the nature of Judas the Galilean’s original uprising. Was it violent? No such armed revolt is recounted by the Roman historian, Tacitus (Lendering 2020). Josephus mentions that it “filled our civil governments with tumults” perhaps implying that it was more of a political issue (A.J. 18.1.1). Elsewhere, however, he writes that the Sicarii of this time were so fanatical that if they found out you were paying your taxes, they would burn your house down! (B.J. 7.8.1) Was this by order of Judas or were people taking his message and getting carried away?

After summarizing the three other branches of Judaism in his time, Josephus returns to Judas:

But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kinds of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man lord. And since this immovable resolution of theirs is well known to a great many, I shall speak no further about that matter; nor am I afraid that any thing I have said of them should be disbelieved, but rather fear, that what I have said is beneath the resolution they show when they undergo pain. And it was in Gessius Florus’s time that the nation began to grow mad with this distemper, who was our procurator, and who occasioned the Jews to go wild with it by the abuse of his authority, and to make them revolt from the Romans. (A.J. 18.1.6)

Notice that, by Josephus’s understanding, one of the sect’s defining characteristics is that they would honor no man, namely Caesar, as their “Lord.” Our earliest Christian traditions, the genuine letters of Paul, attest to special usage of the title “Lord” for Jesus.  To the Christians, Jesus was more than a man. The Philippians hymn, which may predate Paul’s conversion, states that before his coming to earth, Christ was “in the form of God” and after his crucifixion, he became “highly exalted” and given “the name that is above every name” (Phil. 2:6-11 [NRSV]). To the early Christians, there was one God, The Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. Thus, we can reconcile Josephus’s account with what we know of early Christians—they would not acknowledge Caesar as their lord, because they reserved that title for Jesus, who they worshipped as “the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4 [NRSV]).

Josephus implies that the followers of Judas were well-known for undergoing extreme torture whilst never in the process renouncing their faith. One cannot help but draw comparisons of this iron will to the martyrdoms of early Christians. For example, the Roman historian Tacitus says this of the Christians:

Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind…Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed. (Tac. Ann. 15.44)

Quite plainly, Tacitus and Josephus are describing the same group, with the Roman historian sticking to the moniker of “Christos” in identifying its leader. If the Christians were any bit of the religious terrorist cell described by Josephus as the Fourth Philosophy, perhaps they did start that horrific fire in Rome. Regardless of whether that was truly the case, the teachings of Judas were the seed that by 67 CE matured into a full-blown armed rebellion.  Josephus tells us that many of the younger sorts were drawn to this movement, and from this, we might infer that Judas himself was a young man when he founded the philosophy. If Judas were in his early 20s in 6 CE, he could have easily lived into the 30s CE. This would put him around age 50 at the time of his crucifixion, which coincides with a puzzling line in the Gospel of John.

“Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’” (John 8:57 [NRSV])

A potential issue in accepting this timeline involves the father of Judas. The Galilean is often conflated with another Judas mentioned by Josephus: Judas the son of Hezekiah, who broke into Herod’s armory and rebelled in 4 BCE (Brandon 1967, 53). There is simply no reason for us to assume that these two characters are one and the same. Josephus treats Judas of Gamala as a previously undiscussed individual when introducing him in his narration of the 6 CE tax revolt. Nowhere does Josephus mention writing of this Judas before. He never says that Judas the Galilean had a father named Hezekiah or that he had previously mounted an armed insurrection. Frankly, the name “Judas” was the fourth most popular among males during this period (Bauckham 2006, 85), and there were likely a great many men with this name who took part in popular uprisings. 

Regarding Judas’s partner Saddoc (or Zadok), Josephus writes that he was a Pharisee. Furthermore, he tells us that the Fourth Philosophy initiated by Judas agreed with the Pharisaic school on most issues. Likewise, despite being rivals, Maccoby (2003) highlights numerous points of agreement between the Pharisees and Jesus’s movement, not the least of which was the belief in the resurrection of the dead (A.J. 18.1.3). As is often the case, the most bitter rivalries can arise between those who have the most in common. As for the identity of Zadok himself, the name can be translated as “The Righteous” or “The Just” (Eisenman 1997). While this is only speculation, early Christian history attests to this famously being the descriptor of Jesus’s brother, James “The Just.”

Perhaps these similarities between the early Christians and Fourth Philosophy could be written off as reading too much into things, but the Dead Sea Scrolls provide even more tantalizing clues. Previously, some researchers identified the authors of the Scrolls as being Zealots (Vermes 2011, 19). However, if we look closely at their contents, we find multiple points which would contradict this conclusion. In the Damascus Covenant, it is forbidden to shed the blood of a Gentile for the sake of riches and gain (CD XII, 5-10). Meanwhile, in the Community Rule, the Master takes an oath to not grapple with the men of perdition until the preordained “Day of Revenge” (1QS 10, 15-20). This ominous allusion presumably refers to the apocalyptic battle detailed in the War Scroll. These prohibitions stand in stark contrast to the events leading up to 70 CE, in which the Zealots were razing villages and murdering priests. We must distinguish these two schools of thought. The Scrolls Community undoubtedly wanted the Romans gone, but they leaned on God to do the majority of the work for them. On the other hand, Judas taught that God would only come to their aid if he and his followers set about to usher in the Kingdom themselves. Only then maybe would God help tip the scale in their favor. Consider this alternate translation of Josephus recounting Judas’s message.

They argued that, if they succeeded, they would enjoy the consequences of their good fortune, and, if they failed, they would at least have the honour and glory of having shown a greatness of spirit. Moreover, God would more surely assist them in their undertaking, if, inspired by such ideals, they spared no effort to realise them. (Brandon 1967, 33)

Presented with the Righteous Teacher’s eschatological predictions, the Scoffer’s attitude was that “they are not sure” (CD V, 10-15). In other words, they lacked foundation; they could not be counted on. Maybe the Teacher was right and the end was near, but Judas would not hang back and wait on God save the day. He deemed that action was necessary.

While the actions of the Sicarii display that they were not allied with the Scrolls Community, both the pesharim and The Damascus Covenant describe a group of “traitors” who broke away from the sect and “rebelled” (CD I, 10-15). They are labeled “Men of Violence” (1QpHab II, 5-10). The pesharim condemned them, saying that “they sought smooth things and preferred illusions” (CD I, 15-20). “Seekers of smooth things” may also be translated as “flattery-seekers” (Wise, Abegg, and Cook 2005, 245). These rebels who followed the Scoffer can be none other than those adherents of the Fourth Philosophy, the Sicarii, Christians. Second-century Christian writer, Hippolytus, strengthens this connection in identifying Sicarii/Zealots as an offshoot of the Essenes (Brandon 1967, 45). Furthermore, Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered among the ruins of Masada, where the Sicarii made their last stand in the war against Rome. Most notably, a copy of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice was identified, a scroll that highlights the unique 364-day calendar of the sectarians. “Indeed, for all the importance of the calendar to the scrolls, the only group of ancient Jews that followed it to whom the ancient sources give a name is the Sicarii, the last defenders of Masada (Wise, Abegg, and Cook 2005, 35).” Rather than imagining that the Sicarii carried a document which had been composed “more than a century earlier” (34), would it not make more sense to identify the Sicarii with those “Men of Violence,” who broke away from the community during the ministry of the Righteous Teacher? The Sicarii who were annihilated some forty years after the death of John the Baptist, the same timeframe the Damascus Covenant and Psalms Pesher give us for “the end of all the men of war who deserted to the Liar?” (CD B II, 10-15) (4Q171 II, 10)

The accusations laid out in the Scrolls against these so-called “flattery-seekers” are in many ways identical to the ones Josephus makes against the followers of Judas and Zadok: those who “received what they said with pleasure.” In the eyes of his critics, Judas was making false promises; telling people what they wanted to hear. As beautiful as some of the teachings of Jesus are, could they not be viewed from this perspective?

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” (Luke 6:20-21 [NRSV])

When war finally broke out in 67 CE, the Sicarii were led by one Manahem bar Judas, who Josephus tells us is the son and heir apparent of that very same Judas the Galilean (B.J. 2.17.8). Just before his arrival, the Sicarii had destroyed a large number of public records, effectively freeing everyone from their debts (B.J. 2.17.6). This gives a whole new meaning to the line, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12 [NRSV]). Like Jesus riding into Jerusalem in fulfillment of messianic prophecy, Manahem entered the holy city in the state of a king, a messiah, and performed the temple worship in what Josephus called a “pompous” display (B.J. 2.17.9). To their followers, Manahem and his Sicarii were divinely ordained heroes waging battle against an oppressive upper class. To others, however, their guerilla-style tactics and political assassinations made them more akin to terrorists.

Despite all the striking commonalities, some might counter that the wording of the Scrolls is vague and that we are delving into parallelomania with some of our comparisons. Looking further, however, the Scrolls also specifically mention a “House of Judah” who were enemies of the Teacher of Righteousness and his followers:

The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him. The Lord laughs at him, for He sees that his day is coming. Interpreted, this concerns the violent of the Covenant who are in the House of Judah, who have plotted to destroy those who practice the law, who are in the Council of the Community. And God will not forsake them to their hands. (4Q 171 II, 10-15)

But could this merely be a reference to Judeans in general, as in the Tribe of Judah? Perhaps, but then what of the following reference to the House of Absalom?

O traitors, why do you stare and stay silent when the wicked swallows up one more righteous than he? Interpreted, this concerns the House of Absalom and the members of its council who were silent at the time of the chastisement of the Teacher of Righteousness and gave him no help against the Liar who flouted the law in the midst of their whole congregation. (1QpHab V, 10-15)

It has been suggested that this Absalom, a rare name (Bauckham 2006, 86), was perhaps one who lived during the Hasmonean era (Vermes 2011, 64). But we also find an “Absalom” mentioned in Josephus—one who was the right-hand man of Judas’s son, Manahem!

A few there were of them who privately escaped to Masada, among whom was Eleazar, the son of Jairus, who was of kin to Manahem, and acted the part of a tyrant at Masada afterward. As for Manahem himself, he ran away to the place called Ophla, and there lay skulking in private; but they took him alive, and drew him out before them all; they then tortured him with many sorts of torments, and after all slew him, as they did by those that were captains under him also, and particularly by the principal instrument of his tyranny, whose name was Apsalom. (B.J. 2.17.9)

Notice also the reference to a certain “Jairus,” a relative of Manahem. Jairus is yet another rare name for this time (Bauckham 2006, 85). This could not possibly be the Jairus mentioned in Mark chapter 5…could it?

Speaking of the Gospels, they also drop numerous hints at the rebellious origins of Christianity. In one difficult passage, Jesus tells his disciples that he came not to bring peace, but the sword.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. (Matthew 10: 34-36 [NRSV])

Compare this to the traitors as mentioned in the Scrolls:

They have taken revenge and borne malice, every man against his brother, and every man has hated his fellow, and every man has sinned against his near kin, and has approached for unchastity, and has acted arrogantly for the sake of riches and gain. (CD VIII, 5-10)

And we can look back to Josephus on the followers of Judas:

…murders of men, which sometimes fell on those of their own people, (by the madness of these men towards one another, while their desire was that none of the adverse party might be left,) … (A.J. 18.1.1)

This was not exactly a “live and let live” philosophy, and we will return to this when we discuss the rivalry between Paul and James in a future post. Jesus again:

Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Mark 13: 12-13 [NRSV])

Jesus also gives explicit instruction for his disciples to acquire arms in his speech given at the last supper:

He said to them, “But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.” They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” He replied, “It is enough.” (Luke 22: 36-38 [NRSV])

Luke claims that Jesus said this merely to fulfill prophecy, but it speaks to a more embarrassing reality that this was the true nature of the early Jesus movement. He and his disciples were rebel bandits, lestai in Greek (Aslan 2013, Ch. 12). If the Gospel account is accurate, the two lestai crucified with Jesus were likely two of his followers, perhaps the two who Luke tells us possessed blades.

Of course, the Gospels do mention a famous Judas: Judas Iscariot. Scholars have long wondered how we should interpret the infamous disciple’s last name. The most logical conclusion offered is that “Iscariot” is derived from none other than the word “Sicarii” (Britannica 2020). From this, we can see how Judas the Sicarii is a stand-in for Judas the Galilean, the leader of that notorious gang of bandits. The reputation of the Sicarii as dagger assassins would play into Judas’s narrative role as the one who essentially kills Jesus by betraying him to Pilate and the High Priests. Mark’s Roman readership would have seen him as the Brutus to Christ’s Caesar. In further support, Hyam Maccoby (1982) has shown how the character of Judas plays the role of the “Sacred Executioner” in the ritual sacrifice of Christ. Deconstructing the mythical underpinnings of the passion narrative, Maccoby demonstrates how the archetype of the “evil twin” is present in numerous legends throughout the ancient world: Egypt’s Osiris and Set, Cain and Abel of the Hebrews, Christianity’s Judas and Jesus, and even the roles of God and Satan (126).

As brother, or twin, of God, Satan is a surrogate-figure for God Himself, drawing away the hatred that might have been directed at the father-god for demanding the death of the son. But as rival son or Jesus’s evil brother, Satan is also the other side of Jesus too; he is the picture of how the innocent sacrifice takes upon himself the sins of the whole community, thus becoming loathsome and wicked. From this standpoint, the Sacred Executioner is simply another aspect of the sacrificed victim…The brotherhood, or twinship, of the sacrificer and victim may thus express not merely the kinship of the community with the victim, but the identity of the victim and sacrificer. In the last resort, the victim has sacrificed himself, so no-one but he is to blame. (Maccoby 1982, 128)

Maccoby goes on to apply this directly to Judas Iscariot, noting how his death fulfills the standard tropes of the sacrificed victim even more so than Jesus’s:

But it is interesting that, in suffering his punishment, Judas is unwittingly assimilated to the sacrificial victim himself. This bears out what was said above about the frequently found twin-relationship between sacrifice and victim. In the last resort, the sacrificer and victim are one. This unity derives from a time when the sacrifice did not produce such guilt in the community as to require banishment or repudiation of the sacrificer. Instead, the sacrificer actually took the place of the victim, and reigned as king in his stead, and was regarded as being himself the resurrected incarnation of the victim whom he had slain. (Maccoby 1982, 133)

In essence, the characters of Judas and Jesus as depicted in the Gospels are the same character split down the middle, Judas being the Jungian shadow of Jesus, his dark half. This tradition has perhaps been preserved for us in the Gospel of Barnabas, in which an act of God physically transforms Judas Iscariot so that he appears to resemble Jesus. Judas is the one crucified whilst Jesus is assumed into Heaven.

‘And Judas the traitor entered before the rest into the place from which Jesus had just been taken up. And the disciples were sleeping. And the wonderful God acted wonderfully, changing Judas into the same figure and speech with Jesus. We, believing that it was he, said to him, “Master, whom seekest thou?” And he said to them, smiling, “Ye have forgotten yourselves, since ye do not know Judas Iscariot.” At this time the soldiery entered; and seeing Judas so like in every respect to Jesus, laid hands upon him….’ (Gospel of Barnabas cited in Cotterell 1977, 46)

Thus, we find a single historical figure: Judas the Galilean aka Jesus the Nazorean.

(Reference list at the bottom of the next post) Continue on to Part 2.