Jesus the Revolutionary?
Jesus the Revolutionary?
Several decades ago, S. G. F. Brandon envisioned Jesus as a zealot.85 Such an approach was not entirely new; two centuries earlier, Reimarus had interpreted the kingdom against the backdrop of Jewish resistance against Roman oppression.86 While viewing Jesus as a revolutionary would make sense of Jesus’ execution and “kingdom” language, it is hardly the best explanation of these features. Most extant Jewish use of “kingdom” language is not linked to revolutionaries, and a number of prophetic figures (most obviously John the Baptist, as noted in Josephus)87 managed to get martyred without leading military revolts. (Romans also suppressed most rebels militarily, unlike Jesus.)
Brandon’s view is important to us not because it is widely held today; in its fullest form of “Jesus as zealot” it is in fact virtually dead. But Brandon’s view illustrates the diversity within Jesus research, and also serves as a warning about the politics of the academy. Today, for example, there are scholars who make Jesus virtually a Cynic sage. Brandon’s thesis may have been mistaken, but at least it exhibited the virtue of placing Jesus within a genuine first-century Jewish context, rather than importing a context that existed in Galilee barely if at all.