• Yeshua bar Yehoseph (Jesus son of Joseph)
• Yehudah bar Yeshua (Judas son of Jesus)
• Yoseh (Joses)
• Mariah (Mary in its Latin form)
• Matiah (Matthew)
• Mariamh kai Mara (Mary and Martha) alternatively Mariamenou-Mara (Mariamne called Mara)

Much of the discussion surrounding the Talpiot Tomb, or “Garden Tomb,” as it is sometimes called, has centered on the statistical analysis of the names found on the ossuaries. These names are said to be common for the time, and thus, the chances of Talpiot being the burial site of Jesus Christ are “almost nil” (Tabor 2006, 26). We will save an in-depth discussion of these stats for a later installment. I will also set aside, for the moment, the question of whether the James Ossuary has any relation to the Talpiot Tomb and how that affects the calculations. Truth be told, statistical analysis by itself is unlikely to provide any conclusive answers on the subject. What often goes unmentioned in discussions is that all probabilities offered by statisticians are based on a certain number of factual assumptions provided by Biblical historians. As Jerry Lutgen (2009) remarks, “In the end, the views of most people will be framed more by how they distill a broad range of information from content experts than it will be from odds estimates presented by statisticians.” One can view the list of assumptions used by the statisticians HERE. The more of these we grant, the likelier it becomes that Jesus of Nazareth was buried in Talpiot. Thus, by manipulating the assumptions/beliefs used for the calculations, one can basically get the statistics to say anything one wants.

The Exterior of the Garden Tomb

An objection that is often raised when debating the odds for the Talpiot Tomb is the presence of a “Matthew” among the other named ossuaries (Kilty 2010). Matthew was one of Jesus’s disciples, but not traditionally believed to have been a relative of his, so according to some, this must be counted against the evidence. Once again, however, this is not a dealbreaker by any means. Conversely, we might factor it in as positive evidence for the ID of this tomb as that of the Holy Family. In Luke’s genealogy, numerous variations of the name, “Matthew,” are scattered amongst the generations: Matthat, Mattathias, Maath, Mattatha, some of these being listed more than once (Luke 3:23-38 [NRSV]). I agree with Richard Bauckham (2006) in viewing Luke’s genealogy as more accurate than that of the first gospel (86). If we take Luke at his word, “Matthew” and its variations are very much expected names for the Jesus family, if not a brother of Jesus, then perhaps an uncle or cousin.

The “Mary and Martha” ossuary has also been the subject of much controversy, as initially, the filmmakers made the assertion that the inscription read “Mariamenou-Mara,” which translated to “Mariamne called Mara (Master).” They stated that this likely referred to Mary Magdalene, who in some texts is portrayed as a prominent leader of the early church (Jacobovici 2007). In two Christian sources, Hippolytus and the Acts of Philip, Mary Magdalene is referred to as “Mariamene,” a rare form of the name (Tabor and Jacobovici 2013, 113-114). Furthermore, Jacobovici (2007) asserted that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus, a scandalous proposition for many Christian denominations which hold that Jesus was forever celibate.

As time passed, the reading of “Mariamh kai Mara” (Mary and Martha) for this ossuary has been more firmly established, as (among other reasons) the first and second parts of the inscription seem to come from two different hands (Pfann 2013, 28). Without the rare name of “Mariamene” included in the batch, it can be reckoned that a major blow is dealt to those who hold that the Talpiot Tomb belongs to the Jesus family. But we should not be too hasty in our dismissal. As mentioned, all statistical analysis rests on certain assumptions, and these assumptions are challenged by information present in both the Gospels and the Dead Sea Scrolls. One common reason for two women being buried together would be if they were sisters. In the Gospel of John, sisters Mary and Martha of Bethany are key figures. Surprisingly, there is a strong case to be made for Mary of Bethany being the same person as Mary Magdalene (Bütz 2020). With “Mary” being the most common female name of that time, it is admittedly difficult to keep track of the different women in the Gospels who bear it (Bauckham 2006, 89). Nevertheless, we should remember that it is Mary of Bethany who anoints Jesus’s feet with oil using her hair according to John’s Gospel (John 12:3). Mary Magdalene is dropped into the narrative without explanation during the Passion, a sign that the redactor of Gospel John was weaving together disparate traditions. John’s Gospel makes special note of the fact that Jesus “loved” Mary and Martha along with their brother Lazarus (John 11:5). In a rare display of emotion, it is Lazarus whose death caused Jesus to weep (John 11:35). Steve Mason has gone so far as to suggest that Lazarus might be the “beloved disciple” of the fourth Gospel (Lambert 2021). Would not a family relation make sense of why Jesus was said to have left his mother in the care of this disciple?

In the Damascus Covenant, the “Builders of the Wall” (a derisive term used to describe those who create their own laws) are said to have been caught in one of the three nets of Belial (note the allusion to fishing). These three nets are disguised to appear as three forms of righteousness and the first is said to be the act of fornication (CD IV, 15-20). The rebels are described as following the ways of their lawgiver or “Precept,” the “Babbler” or “Spouter.” This Spouter is, of course, Judas/Jesus, as we have demonstrated in the previous post. What is relevant to the discussion of the Mary and Martha ossuary is the type of fornication this Precept was said to have engaged in:

‘Precept’ was a spouter of whom it is written, They shall surely spout (Mic. ii, 6)—shall be caught in fornication twice by taking a second wife while the first is alive, whereas the principle of creation is, Male and female He created them…And concerning the prince it is written, He shall not multiply wives to himself; but David had not read the sealed book of the Law which was in the ark (of the Covenant)…And the deeds of David rose up, except for the murder of Uriah, and God left them to him. (CD IV, 20 – V, 5)

This would seemingly refer to polygamy and not divorce, as the Torah allows for the latter (Deut. 24:1-4). Some additional clues are dropped when the writer excuses King David for his multiple wives. This allusion to David is repeated in the MMT document, a letter which may have been sent by the Teacher of Righteousness to the Wicked Priest himself (Vermes 2011, 221). The Teacher urged his rival, with who he was still apparently on speaking terms, to “Remember David, that he was a man of piety, and that he was also saved from many troubles and pardoned” (4Q398 14-17 ii conflated with 4Q399). These repeated references to David seem to imply that the writers are communicating with a messianic figure, someone who is compared to or comparing himself to Israel’s legendary king. It seems as if the one called Christ harkened back to his role model, King David, in order to justify his polygamy, just as he did when breaking the Sabbath.

Let us now get to the heart of the matter. Although experts have focused their attention on the “Jesus son of Joseph” ossuary, I propose that the Messiah in question was laid to rest in the ossuary labeled “Judas bar Jesus.” This Judas was not the son of Christ, as suggested in the documentary. This Judas was Jesus Christ, the only Jesus we are concerned with here (in all due respect to his father). Jesus Christ was actually “Bar Jesus” with “Jesus” essentially acting as what we would compare to a patronym or last name. The archaeological evidence itself indicates that perhaps this Judas was of higher prominence or had greater means by the time of his burial (Pfann 2013, 60). Whereas the Jesus son of Joseph ossuary is quite plain, and the name sloppily etched on, the ossuary of Judas is nicely decorated and the only one of the lot bearing a formal inscription (Tabor and Jacobovici 2013, 186). It is also identified as being of the same generation as the Mary and Martha ossuary, as opposed to the Jesus bar Joseph ossuary, which appears to be slightly older (Pfann 2013, 62-63).

Ossuary of Judas son of Jesus. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. CC BY-SA 3.0

That some Judeans were commonly referred to by their father’s name is attested in the New Testament, where the High Priest, “Joseph son of Caiaphas” is simply referred to as “Caiaphas” (Matt. 26:57 [NRSV]). We are even told of a “Bar Jesus” in the book of Acts. This character, also known as “Elymas,” is called a magician and false prophet (Acts 13:6-8). In the context of scripture, he is like Judas Iscariot, another narrative man meant to shift the focus of these insinuations away from Christ. This guy was the one they called a magician—not our man, who was a true prophet and miracle worker. Adding more fuel to the fire, the name of Elymas is remarkably similar to one we come across in Josephus’s Antiquities:

Now it happened, that during the time of the high priesthood of this Matthias, there was another person made high priest for a single day, that very day which the Jews observed as a fast. The occasion was this: This Matthias the high priest, on the night before that day when the fast was to be celebrated, seemed, in a dream, to have conversation with his wife; and because he could not officiate himself on that account, Joseph, the son of Ellemus, his kinsman, assisted him in that sacred office. But Herod deprived this Matthias of the high priesthood, and burnt the other Matthias, who had raised the sedition, with his companions, alive. And that very night there was an eclipse of the moon. (A.J. 17.6.4)

Is this Joseph son of Ellemus to be equated with Joseph son of Heli, Jesus’s adoptive father according to Luke? It would certainly fit our reconstruction, for if people thought Joseph was the father of Judas bar Jesus, Judas would have been seen as coming from a priestly lineage, an honor passed from father to son. We can then reckon why the Scrolls Sectarians knew him as the “Wicked Priest.” What’s more, Herod was keen to observe Torah law in his reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and so he had many priests of this time trained as stonemasons and carpenters (A.J. 15.11.2).

One detail we need to get out of the way is the size of the Judas ossuary. In the film, the assertion is made that the ossuary is that of a child (Jacobovici 2007). Similarly, Stephen Pfann (2013) writes, “The personalized CJO 702, Judah bar Jesus ossuary was the smallest ossuary in the tomb which again might indicate that the deceased may have been a youth” (8; emphasis added). We simply cannot draw this conclusion from the evidence that we have. As has been observed with other ossuary examples in Jerusalem, “Unfortunately ossuary size does not correlate well with contents. That is, the smallest do not always contain the bones of infants, the next largest do not always contain children’s bones, and so forth” (Strange 1975, 48). At 55 cm long, the Judas ossuary is easily able to accommodate an adult femur and its narrow 23 cm in width is still enough for an adult skull. Importantly, while the total volume of the Judas ossuary is the least of those found in the garden tomb at Talpiot, it is not the shortest in length. Alternative explanations can be found for the proportions, such as the Judas ossuary being specifically designed to house one set of human remains. This is in contrast to the Mary and Martha ossuary, which seems designed for at least two people (Pfann 2013, 6). Pfann also hypothesizes that at some point in time, the fortunes of the family buried in the Garden Tomb increased, allowing for the later ossuaries to be more ornately decorated (60). I suggest that, if this is the case, and the person who was responsible for this newfound wealth was an immediate family member, would not this person logically be the one whose ossuary bears the only formal inscription of the bunch: Judas bar Jesus? In any case, Jacobovici seems to have backed away from the suggestion that Judas died a youth, as his later book with Tabor states, “His ossuary is not undersized (55 x 23 x 27 centimeters), so he was not a child when he died” (Tabor and Jacobovici 2013, 186).

As a rebel against the Empire, Judas was a rival lord and in direct opposition to Caesar. Aslan (2013) notes that Paul, a Hellenized Jew, uses “Christ” in a fashion comparable to a Roman cognomen, in effect downplaying its original Jewish meaning and better relating to the spiritual needs of his Gentile audience:

Paul does not call Jesus the Christ (Yesus ho Xristos), as though Christ were his title. Rather, Paul calls him “Jesus Christ,” or just “Christ,” as if it were his surname. This is an extremely unusual formulation whose closest parallel is in the way Roman emperors adopted “Caesar” as a cognomen, as in Caesar Augustus. (Aslan 2013, 189)

Dropping the praenomen (first name) of “Judas,” would also align with the cultural conventions of the Romans during this time:

Not only were cognomina being substituted more and more for the previously standard and limited praenomina, the cognomen was also becoming the simple and accepted name by which a Roman was addressed, rather than the more formal praenomen + nomen gentilicium form of address. Praenomina were falling into disuse, even becoming “fossilized”—a term applied by historian Dr. Benet Salway (University College, London) to describe how praenomina were becoming “less individuating and less of a consciously given name”. Of such little importance now was the praenomen, that it was not unusual or bizarre to find two brothers of the same family bearing the same first name, as in the case of the sons of the emperor Vespasianus, who were both given the praenomen of “Titus”. (Nephele n.d.)

When we see it from this perspective, it makes sense that much as Gaius Julius Caesar was simply referred to as Julius Caesar, so was Judas bar Jesus Christ shortened to Jesus Christ. Paul, himself a Roman citizen, would have been quite familiar with this practice, and as the motivation grew to distance Jesus from his embarrassingly criminal origins, his first name of Judas was turned into the villain of the story and the truth eventually forgotten.

Using this information, we might be able to make some sense of the mysterious symbol that appears on the Talpiot Tomb’s exterior. Pfann (2013) suggests that it possibly signifies that a ruler, scribe, or priest was buried inside, writing “The wreath ornament place above the door of a house or a tomb normally indicated that a patriarch or family member of some accomplished status or renown was resided within” (58). Analogous temple-like carvings might be found on a few other Jewish ossuaries of the period, but more often we observe this motif in the context of Roman grave markers. That a similar design was depicted on the entrance of the Garden Tomb may indicate that this family had embraced Roman culture. In light of certain passages in Josephus as well as the DSS, we might suggest that love of liberty and religious orthodoxy did not necessarily go hand-in-hand. As Josephus laments, the Zealots “brought up novel rules of a strange Divine worship” (B.J. 2.17.3).

Coin Issued by Philip the Tetrarch CC BY-SA 3.0

Temple of Augustus at Pula CC BY-SA 4.0

A close parallel to the facade’s design can be found on coins minted by Philip the Tetrarch in the early first century CE. On these coins, we find an image of the “Augusteum” or Temple of Augustus at Paneas, otherwise known as Caesarea Philippi (Metcalf 2012, 488). This city is remarkable in that it is the very spot in which Jesus is first recognized as the Christ by Simon Peter (Matt. 16:16). In the shadow of the Imperial Cult, Jesus is proclaimed, “Son of the Living God” in defiance of Caesar Augustus’s claim to be “Divi Filius”—son of a god (Oxford Reference 2021). Like other temples dedicated to the emperor, such as the one in Pula, the Temple of Augustus at Paneas was depicted as featuring a gabled roof and bore a circular shield-like emblem in the center of its façade. Noting its similarities to the Augusteum at Paneas, Kilpatrick (2007) writes, “It appears that some of those buried within this tomb were identifying themselves with the dynasty of Herod or with the temple of Augustus.” It is possible that this Roman motif was co-opted by first-century Jews and applied to their religious beliefs. But do we have any other evidence that Jesus was associated with the family of Herod?

Jesus as Herodian

In reality, for Jesus to have been such an expert in Jewish law and traditions, he likely came from a more privileged upbringing. In the early first century CE, the upper echelon of Jewish society consisted mainly of the Herodians. As farfetched as it may seem, there is compelling evidence to suggest that Judas bar Jesus was a member of their despised clan. This connection was previously suggested by Robert Graves (1946) in his historical novel, King Jesus, and further refined by Joseph Raymond (2010) in Herodian Messiah. Although I do not hold to the exact genealogies proposed by those two authors, I am inclined to agree with their overall assertion that Judas bar Jesus and Herod the Great were indeed relatives.

The key piece of evidence for this idea is drawn from the genealogy of Jesus found in Luke’s gospel (Luke 3:23-38). A few generations down from Jesus’s supposed father, Joseph, we find the name, “Jannai.” Further down, the name, “Mattathias” comes up in several places. These names are striking, as they seem to reflect known figures of the Hasmonean dynasty. “Jannai” happens to be the (rare) moniker of a well-known king who ruled some 70 years before the time of Christ. Mattathias was the progenitor of the Hasmoneans, also known as the Maccabees (1 Macc. 2:1-5). His son was the famous rebel, Judah Maccabee, who freed his people from the Seleucid Empire, winning independence for Israel for the first time since the Babylonian exile. Luke seems to be telling us that Jesus descended from this family of priest-kings.

Upon his ascension to the throne in 37 BCE, Herod the Great embarked on a systematic extermination of all prominent members of the Hasmonean family (A.J. 15.1.2). In a bid to gain popular support, Herod also mixed his line with that of the Maccabees, taking a Hasmonean wife, Mariamne, herself a descendent of Alexander Jannai (14.13.7). This King Jannai was an infamous ruler, who is perhaps best remembered for crucifying 800 rebels, including many Pharisees, who had opposed him during the civil war of the early first century BCE (13.14.2). Perhaps this grudge between Jesus and the Pharisees goes back farther than we thought!

The Execution of the Pharisees; Painting by Willem Swidde, 17th c.

The “slaughter of the innocents” recounted in Matthew’s Gospel could be viewed as a version of Herod’s seek-and-destroy policy regarding the Hasmoneans. Herod even ended up eventually killing his Hasmonean wife, the aforementioned Mariamne (A.J. 15.7.5). He also executed Alexander and Aristobulus, the two sons he and Mariamne had together (16.11.7). This being the case, is it possible that some—including the mother or father of Judas—were able to escape the tyrant’s wrath? As Josephus himself claims Hasmonean descent, we can say with a fair amount of confidence that Herod was not completely successful in wiping out his rivals’ bloodline (Vita para. 1).

As to the exact lineage of Judas bar Jesus, the answers are not so clear, but we might notice that Matthew’s genealogy (Matt. 1:1-16) lists four foreign women with questionable sexual reputations. This detail perhaps betrays some knowledge of a scandalous birth (Tabor 2006, 50). Meanwhile, Josephus documents that Herod suspected his Hasmonean wife, Mariamne, of infidelity at one point, as he had left her in the care of his uncle, Joseph, for a period while away on business. Mariamne and Joseph apparently became quite close, to the extent that Joseph admitted to her Herod’s insane plan of having her killed in the event anything should happen to himself. Figuring that this was a secret only lovers would share, Herod had his uncle promptly executed, but it leaves the window open for an interval in which Mariamne may have secretly given birth (A.J. 15.3.5-9). The timeframe (circa 37 BCE) would theoretically align with that of Judas bar Jesus’s parents. Could this illicit relationship between Mariamne and Joseph have produced Judas’s father, Jesus? Or perhaps his mother, Mary?

In any case, the above speculation is but one possibility as to how Judas may have descended from Herod’s family line. As Joseph was the second most popular male name of the era (Bauckham 2006, 85), the father of the Talpiot Tomb’s Yeshua bar Yehoseph could be any number of people. Nevertheless, Judas bar Jesus being both a Hasmonean and a Herod makes a great deal of sense given the surrounding context. If Judas bar Jesus was a Maccabee, rebellion was in his blood. It is also perhaps telling that the revolt of Judas took place in 6 CE—the very time that Herodian King Archelaus was ousted from his position as ethnarch of Judea by Caesar Augustus (A.J. 17.13.2). For the first time in its history, Israel was under direct Roman occupation and all pretense of independent governance vanished. We might also gain some insight into Jesus’s messianic self-understanding. His ancestors had freed Israel from the grasp of a much larger empire; perhaps he was meant to do the same. In their day, the Hasmonean rulers assumed the office of not only King of Israel but also that of High Priest (A.J. 20.10.1). Hence, Judas would have come from both a royal and priestly lineage and could plausibly claim a title we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Messiah of Aaron and Israel (CD XIV, 15-20).

An objection that might be raised against the idea of a Herodian Jesus deals with the nature of his movement. The Herods were known to have been allies of Rome and it perhaps seems unlikely that one would go on to lead what was tantamount to a peasant revolt—rebelling against not only the empire but his kinsmen. When speaking of this family, however, it is not so hard to imagine. For one, the House of Herod was notorious for its infighting: Herod the Great himself murdered many of his relatives, including at least three of his sons (A.J. 16.11.7; 17.7.1). There was also bad blood between his sons Antipas and Agrippa, which ultimately resulted in Antipas being exiled to Spain (B.J. 2.9.6). As for a modern analog of a wealthy elite becoming the revered leader of a populist movement, we need look no further than the 2016 United States Presidential election. At the same time, we do not know for certain the conditions of Judas bar Jesus’s early life. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that he was forced into hiding so as to escape the madness of King Herod and his other rivals in the family. He may have had periods of prosperity and other times of impoverishment, much as another of Herod’s progeny, Agrippa, experienced throughout his life (A.J. 18.6-18.7).

The Dead Sea Scrolls also hint at a connection between Jesus and the Herodians. In the Damascus Document, the “builders of the wall,” who we have previously established as the followers of Judas bar Jesus, are said to engage in a particular form of endogamy:

And each man marries the daughter of his brother or sister, whereas Moses said, You shall not approach your mother’s sister; she is your mother’s near kin. But although the laws against incest are written for men, they also apply to women. When, therefore, a brother’s daughter uncovers the nakedness of her father’s brother, she is (also his) near kin. (CD V, 5-15)

Herod is commonly thought of as one of history’s great villains. Photo source: Jbribeiro1 / CC BY-SA 4.0

The male Herods commonly married their nieces. In fact, along with marriage between cousins, the uncle/niece arrangement was the most popular form of endogamous marriage among the Herodians (Moen 2009, 237). From Josephus, we know of six specific examples of marriage between a Herodian uncle and niece (215). Endogamous relationships were considered both beneficial and virtuous, as they kept power within the family while holding to Jewish traditions of marrying within the tribe (214). But while cousin marriages and marrying one’s legal relatives were accepted by most Jews of the time, there was an ongoing dispute over the interpretation of Leviticus 18:13, which forbids a man from marrying his aunt. As Moen notes, “The Herodians regularly paired uncles and nieces in marriage in opposition to the rabbinic (and Qumran) position, although notably not in violation of the biblical stance on these marriages” (342). I have not been able to find a similar instance in the history of the relevant time where this controversy has arisen. Thus, it stands to reason that the Damascus Covenant could very well be referencing the Herodians as standing among their opposition.

We can find clues of a Herodian link in other sources as well. The Babylon Talmud explicitly mentions that “Jesus the Nazarene…was close to the government” (Raymond 2010, 5). The Protoevangelium of James claims that Jesus’s mother, Mary, came from a very wealthy family and wore a headband bearing a “mark of royalty” (2-3). This would seem to indicate that Mary was a Hasmonean, a Herod, or both. That Mary was of priestly descent can be inferred from Luke’s gospel, as we are told that her kinswoman, Elizabeth, is a “daughter of Aaron” (2). In short, the only likely way that Mary could be both royal and of Aaron is if she were a Hasmonean (3). And if she were a Hasmonean in the late first century BCE, the most likely way that her family could have survived is if she were in some way a relative of Herod (4).

If Jesus was truly fomenting an underground resistance movement, one has to wonder how he was able to romp around Galilee for so long without being arrested. To answer this, we might turn to Luke’s account of Jesus’s meeting with Herod Antipas:

When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some sign. He questioned him at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by vehemently accusing him. Even Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; they put an elegant robe on him, and sent him back to Pilate. That same day Herod and Pilate become friends with each other; before this they had been enemies. (Luke 23: 8-12 [NRSV])

Luke tells us that prior to this episode, there was no love between Antipas and Pilate. He also implies that rather than opposing Jesus, Antipas was in a way fascinated by him. This would explain how Antipas would allow the Jesus movement to go unchecked for so long, especially if Jesus were a relative of his. The Herods were opportunists and the loyalty they showed to Rome was above all a result of political expediency. Even Herod Agrippa, who was highly favored by Emperors Caligula and Claudius—them having granted him the title of “King” over the entirety of his grandfather’s territory—used his position to refortify Jerusalem and construct a third wall around the city, abandoning the project only when Claudius suspected that he was up to something (B.J. 5.4.2).

Jesus and Antipas shared another common enemy: John the Baptist aka the Teacher of Righteousness. We are told that the beef between John and Antipas arose over what John deemed the shameful divorce and remarriage of the ethnarch (Mark 6:17-20). This is quite in character for the Righteous Teacher, who was keen to speak out on others’ marital affairs, as we have seen in the Damascus Covenant (CD IV, 20 – V, 5).

The Scrolls Community expected a messiah to come from the line of David, as is stated in the Isaiah Pesher: “[Interpreted, this concerns the Branch] of David…who shall arise at the end [of days]” (4Q161 frs. 8-10, 15-20). However, in the Gospels, Jesus seems to indicate the Messiah (himself) needn’t be descended from this royal house: “How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David…David himself calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?” (Mark 12: 35-37 [NRSV]) This would serve as another point of contention between Jesus and John. The so-called Righteous Teacher may have been willing to overlook the questionable ancestry of the messianic claimant, as he wrote in the MMT: “For [we have noticed] that prudence and knowledge of the law are with you” (4Q398 14-17 ii conflated with 4Q399, 27-28). But when Jesus scoffed at John’s interpretation of the law, the gloves came off. Jesus was not only biologically a Herodian; he was culturally one, and his lackadaisical Hellenized approach to the Torah was the gravest insult to the Teacher and his community.

On the surface, the suggestion that Jesus was a Herod is perhaps the most speculative of the so-called pillars I have presented here. One might call to attention the fact that the genealogies found in the Gospels both supposedly trace descent through Jesus’s adoptive father, Joseph. We should recall, however, that wedding one’s near kin was encouraged within the culture of first-century Judaism, as the book of Tobit firmly displays (Moen 2009, 215). “First of all, marry a woman from among the descendants of your ancestors; do not marry a foreign woman, who is not of your father’s tribe…” (Tobit 4:12 [NRSV]). Thus, even if the genealogy found in Luke is that of Joseph the Carpenter-Priest, it is likely that Mary was a relative of his and also of Hasmonean blood. Furthermore, as Christopher Lawson emphasizes, there is a running theme of royalty to be found throughout both the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is especially evident in Jesus’s title as “the Nazarene,” which likely stemmed from the Hebrew root, netzer, meaning “Branch,” another reference to the royal line of David (Berman 2021). And while there were various concepts of “messiah” in the first century (including also a priestly messiah and a prophet like Moses), Aslan (2013) notes how Jesus saw himself in terms of the Davidic kingly type:

When Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, using the description from Daniel as a title, he is making a clear statement about how he views his identity and his mission. He is associating himself with the paradigm of the Davidic messiah, the king who will rule the earth on God’s behalf, who will gather the twelve tribes of Israel…and restore the nation of Israel to its former glory. He is claiming the same position as King David, “at the right hand of the Power.” In short, he is calling himself king. (Aslan 2013, 143)

All of this points to a Jesus who, while perhaps not a descendent of David, was nevertheless able to make some plausible claim to Israel’s throne. But there is more to this story. The next post on this blog will reveal additional proof that Jesus was a Herod and an enemy of John the Baptist.

Concluding Remarks

In the above paragraphs, I have laid out the basic pillars for a new paradigm in our understanding of the historical Jesus, one which I plan to elaborate on further in future blog posts. Any of the four pillars I have argued for in this post can be accepted or rejected on their own merit. Indeed, one doesn’t need to take them as a whole. Jesus could have been the Wicked Priest, for instance, but not buried in the Talpiot Tomb. He may have been the figure Josephus calls Judas the Galilean but not related to Herod the Great in any way. I could be wrong on all accounts, and I anticipate many will conclude this to be the case. What I have attempted to show, however, is that given all these pieces of circumstantial evidence, once we assemble them in this fashion, a coherent portrait of the historical Jesus comes into view. This is a person who is attested in history—who started his own sect of Judaism which matches the philosophy present in the New Testament. This Bar Jesus was called the Messiah, was crucified, and was buried. Afterward, his movement lived on in the form of the Sicarii, and eventually, in those who would call themselves Christians.

Rather than Josephus mysteriously omitting Christian origins or the Dead Sea Scrolls presenting an otherwise undocumented chapter of Jewish history, we find in these sources an unfamiliar yet unsurprising attestation of a very familiar and polarizing historical figure. Taken together, the four pillars I suggest feed and confirm one another. The result is a very human story of a person who, as fate would have it, was afforded some privilege by birth and used it to his advantage.

Judas Bar Jesus and his motley crew of followers, Men of Violence, splintered off from John’s sect of baptizing mystics. Not content to wait on God, Judas set out to trigger the eschaton personally and rallied people to take matters into their own hands. He roused the poor, who had the most to lose from the new taxation, encouraging them to believe wholeheartedly that the Kingdom of God was at hand. After the initial tax revolt fizzled out, he avoided the limelight of Judea and stayed in Galilee, where he had the protection of his kinsman, Antipas. A fugitive, Bar Jesus’s identity and whereabouts would have been kept a “messianic secret,” a point hammered home in Mark’s Gospel.

Although he fought against Israel’s occupation and taxation, Judas was still a Herod who embraced Roman culture. Those loyal to John saw in Judas a demon-possessed liar, a Wicked Priest, leading the simple astray. The scrolls say that he was “called by the name of truth when he first arose. But when he ruled over Israel his heart became proud, and he forsook God and betrayed the precepts for the sake of riches” (1QpHab VIII, 5-15). From this, we can gather that Bar Jesus adapted to life under Roman rule, stretching and even brazenly scoffing at Jewish purity regulations. He took multiple wives and wasn’t afraid to enjoy certain luxuries, such as wine and oil, abandoning the ascetic Way of John. Whether or not he personally committed any violence, his followers interpreted his teachings as a call to rob and plunder, which is why the Gospels so frequently have Jesus’s disciples missing the point of his message. His critics viewed him as a sophist and charlatan; one who had a clever comeback to anyone questioning his radical innovations. Those who loved him saw him as a champion of the people and treated him as the King of the Jews, anointed not by the State but by God. As “Jesus Christ,” he was worshipped as an alternative lord to Caesar Augustus and usurped his titles of “Savior” and “Son of God.”

After living on the lam for decades, Judas the Galilean returned to the Jerusalem spotlight sometime during the administration of Pontius Pilate. We are told in the Gospels that there was an “insurrection” just prior to the crucifixion of Jesus (Mark 15:7 [NRSV]). During this time, one “Jesus Barabbas,” (Bar Abbas meaning “Son of the Father” in Aramaic) was arrested (Matt. 27:16 [NRSV]). The only insurrection in Jerusalem at that time is recounted by Josephus just before the interpolated Testimonium Flavianum:

But Pilate undertook to bring a current of water to Jerusalem, and did it with the sacred money, and derived the origin of the stream from the distance of two hundred furlongs. However, the Jews were not pleased with what had been done about this water; and many ten thousands of the people got together, and made a clamor against him, and insisted that he should leave off that design. Some of them also used reproaches, and abused the man, as crowds of such people usually do. So he habited a great number of his soldiers in their habit, who carried daggers under their garments, and sent them to a place where they might surround them. So he bid the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition. (A.J. 18.3.2)

The taking of the sacred money, or korbanas, would have been the opportunity which Judas seized upon to once again rally the people against Rome. By allowing Pilate to use God’s money, the priestly elite had turned the Jerusalem Temple into a den of thieves. But was Bar Jesus intending to start an armed revolt against the empire or was his return to Jerusalem, in essence, turning himself in? What did he expect to happen after such a blatantly messianic “triumphal entry?” What was Bar Jesus thinking when he disrupted the temple sacrifices, symbolically fulfilling the prophecies of Daniel 9 and Zechariah 14? Was he hoping for Yahweh and the Heavenly Host to finally intercede, or did he realize that by acting as a scapegoat, Pilate would allow his followers to live? Many questions still exist, but hopefully, we are closer to answering them than we were before.

The implications for both New Testament scholarship and Christianity as a religion would be profound if indeed I am correct, and the aim of the writer is not to convince every believer or turn any away from the faith. Nor do I wish to convert atheists or those who hold to other belief systems. I only hope that this will breed a fruitful discussion amongst those interested and infuse some new angles for us to discuss Jesus, the man.

As for myself, I would be lying if I said that my faith was not challenged by some of the ideas presented in these entries. As a Christian, I struggle not so much with finding the physical remains of our founder as I do with discovering that Jesus was perhaps a flawed individual—at least from a certain point of view. But as God grants us a deeper understanding of ourselves and our roots, we should not feel afraid to question that which we once thought we knew—even as it relates to Christ. The church has long held to the paradox that although he was truly human, Christ was without sin. This heretical reconstruction certainly challenges that concept. At the same time, maybe it is a lesson that can aid us in future growth. Rather than trying to live up to an impossible ideal, perhaps we can take solace in a Jesus who made mistakes. A Wicked Jesus? It is certainly a lot to digest, but then again, the historical Jesus was long ago supplanted by the Christ of faith; a heavenly archetype; his transfigured form. As everything sinks in, I think back to the words which St. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: “Even though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

My sincerest thanks to everyone reading. Please let me know what you think in the comments below. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.