The 'Studies in the Jewish Background to Christianity' is on the bookzz download site in pdf format....John2 wrote:Maryhelena,
Those look like interesting books, judging from what is available online. But I wasn't able to access the pages you cited in the first one (186-187) or the chapter that discusses "stasis" in the second one online.
John2, indeed, any people living under occupation will have a mindset that wants to see the end of the foreign rule. But to imagine that there were no periods of 'quite' (re Tiberius) is to propose a period of constant social rebellion. No foreign power is going to put up with such a scenario i.e. oppression would only get worse - and the one with the bigger stick is going to come off on top. Sure, the mindset is there, the undercurrent is there - but constant rebel activity is just not a rational scenario.
I think I should clarify my big picture viewpoint on "Zealot activity" between 6 and 70 CE. I see it the same way I see the Arab-Israeli conflict. An historian could say that this conflict began with the founding of Israel in 1948 and continued down to the present, whether or not every instance of Arab resistance to Israel was armed, whether or not every Arab with an anti-Israel mindset was armed, or however long the time periods may have been between the larger events, and I would see how all the smaller clashes (rock throwing kids, protests) fit into the overall atmosphere of resistance to Israel that was said to have started in 1948 and continues to the present.
So my view of Zealot "activity," in the sense that "the Zealots" of the 60's CE are connected to the Fourth Philosophy that Judas founded in 6 CE, is that it included a general mindset of resistance to Rome (or to foreign culture in general, which happed to involve Rome at the time), a mindset that doesn't appear to have abated during "quieter" times, to judge from the Pilate passage (and the armed revolt that Tacitus says happened only three years after Pilate). According to Josephus, this mindset is what distinguished the Fourth Philosophy from the other sects:
"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" (Ant. 18.1.6).
Was there "Zealot" activity before the time of Florus in the 60's CE, before the nation went "mad" with this "distemper"? Yes. So did a "Zealot" mindset also exist before this time, even during Pilate's time? I would think so to judge from the mass protests and "stasis" that happened during his time, whether armed or not, and because Josephus says this mindset sprang from Judas and had "infected" the nation "to an incredible degree" and distinguished the Fourth Philosophy from the other sects in Ant. 18.1.1, it's hard for me to see the protest and "stasis" against Pilate in Ant. 18.3.1-2 as not having something to do with what he was just talking about and his overall theme of blaming the Fourth Philosophy for all the "misfortunes" and "seditions" that happened between 6 and 70 CE:
"All sorts of misfortunes ... and the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree; one violent war cam"e 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 ... whence arose seditions ... 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."
Should I think that what Jospehus says happened under Pilate two sections later (of which one of the events, armed or not, is called a sedition) has nothing to with this theme?
Think of Ireland and it's hundreds of years of British occupation. No occupying power and no people under occupation can sustain a constant state of anarchy. Some level of negotiation has to take place to allow some semblance of living a life. Protests, as in the two incidents during Pilate's rule, are part of that negotiation process where the occupiers and the occupied find an arena in which they can both function in a manner that can facilitate a measure of peace. Life goes on even under occupation. When something happens to disturb the equilibrium - or when an opportunity presents itself that has some prospect....then every man to the barricades...
Yes, the Zealot reflection in the gospel story needs to be taken seriously - but looking for Zealot activity during the time of Pilate can't provide any forward movement in that direction. It's just not there.
An Irish rebel song....
The Battle of Vinegar Hill during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
added later:
Due to it's long occupation by the British - and love of the Irish for the actual physical land - the Irish produced not only rebel songs but songs that demonstrate the heartbreak of living in a land under occupation. While this takes the Pilate zealot issue a little away from the thread - it does indicate the importance of dealing with the zealot reflections within the gospel Jesus story. The impact of politics or foreign occupation is not something that can be sidelined by theological ideas - as Irish history demonstrates. British occupation was a big part of the lives of Irish people - as Roman occupation was for Jewish people. To sideline this reality, in order to give the Jesus story a safer theological twist, is to undermine the story's relevance as an insight into the actual social/political reality in which it is based.
Only Our Rivers Run Free
Michael McConnell
When apples still grow in November
When Blossoms still bloom from each tree
When leaves are still green in December
It's then that our land will be free
I wander her hills and her valleys
And still through my sorrow I see
A land that has never known freedom
And only her rivers run free
I drink to the death of her manhood
Those men who'd rather have died
Than to live in the cold chains of bondage
To bring back their rights were denied
Oh where are you now when we need you
What burns where the flame used to be
Are ye gone like the snows of last winter
And will only our rivers run free?
How sweet is life but we're crying
How mellow the wine but it's dry
How fragrant the rose but it's dying
How gentle the breeze but it sighs
What good is in youth when it's aging
What joy is in eyes that can't see
When there's sorrow in sunshine and flowers
And still only our rivers run free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjiyUAWcbro
