was not lost on the crowds who greeted his arrival: “Hosanna to the son of David,” they cried as they placed branches of trees and cloaks on the road for him to ride over in spontaneous gestures of acclaim.
Jesus had deliberately chosen his path. And he had been recognized as the king of the Line of David by the crowds of Jerusalem. The die was cast. Or so it seemed.
This deliberate acting out of Old Testament prophecy and its implications were discussed by Hugh Schonfield in his book The Passover Plot, which was first published in 1965; reissued many times since, it sold over six million copies in eighteen languages.23 It was a best-seller by anybody’s standards, and yet is today almost forgotten. Recent books do not even mention Schonfield’s work.
The matters he raised are certainly controversial but important; the custodians of the orthodox story are constantly trying to keep these alternative ideas out lest they shake the paradigm, lest they cause us to change our attitude toward the Gospels, the figure of Jesus, and the history of the times. Such lessons as Schonfield’s need to be repeated, generation after generation, until eventually they are supported by a weight of data so substantial that the paradigm has no alternative but to flip, causing us to approach our history from a very different perspective.
So many factors in Jesus’s life—the Zealot revolt, his birth to parents who were descendants of the Line of David and the Line of Aaron, respectively, the Zealot members of his immediate entourage, his deliberate entry into Jerusalem as king—should certainly have ensured Jesus’s place in history as the leader of the Jewish nation. But they didn’t. So what went wrong?
Simply put, the Zealot cause failed, utterly and disastrously. It was probably inevitable since, at its heart, it opposed the domination of the Romans, who were the greatest military power the Mediterranean world knew at the time. Although the natural course of the Zealot movement led it to oppose this domination openly and with all the force it could muster, it could never have won. That much was clear to all who looked even a little ahead.
It was evident that there were more Romans than Jews, and Roman power was centered upon an army of disciplined and well-trained professional soldiers who were not averse to feats of creative brutality if the situation demanded it—or if the soldier at hand just happened to feel like it. All this force was backed up by a widespread and formidable command of logistics supported by wellmaintained roads and ships, all of which were integrated into a structure that ensured troops and supplies were delivered in strength and on time.
Since the open emergence of the Zealot opposition in A.D. 6, a series of rulers—Roman governors and Jewish high priests alike—had managed, one way or another, to keep a kind of stability in Judaea.
JUDAEA, JESUS, AND CHRISTIANITY
| Before 4 B.C. | Birth of Jesus, according to Matthew’s Gospel (2:1). |
| 4 B.C. | Death of Herod the Great. |
| A.D. 6 | Birth of Jesus, according to Luke’s Gospel (2:1-7). Census of Quirinius, Governor of Syria. |
| A.D. 27-28 | Baptism of Jesus (traditional date) in the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius (Luke 3:1-23). |
| A.D. 30 | Crucifixion of Jesus, according to Catholic scholarship. |
| c. A.D. 35 | Following the marriage of Herod Antipas and Herodias in c. A.D. 34, John the Baptist is executed, following the evidence in Josephus. |
| A.D. 36 | Passover—crucifixion of Jesus, according to Matthew’s timetable. |
| A.D. 36-37 | Conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus. |
| c. A.D. 44 | Execution of James, the brother of Jesus. |
| A.D. 50-52 | Paul in Corinth. Writes his first letter (to the Thessalonians). |
| A.D. 61 | Paul in Rome under house arrest. |
| c. A.D. 65 | Paul supposedly executed. |
| A.D. 66-73 | War in Judaea. The Roman army under Vespasian invades Judaea. |
| c. A.D. 55-120 | Life of Tacitus, Roman historian and senator, who mentions Christ. |
| c. A.D. 61-c. 114 | Life of Pliny the Younger, who mentions Christ. |
| c. A.D. 115 | Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, quotes from letters of Paul. |
| c. A.D. 117-138 | Suetonius, Roman historian, mentions “Chrestus.” |
| c. A.D. 125 | Earliest known example of a Christian gospel, John 18: 31-33, Rylands Papyrus, found in Egypt. |
| c. A.D. 200 | Oldest known fragment of Paul’s letters, Chester Beatty Papyrus, found in Egypt. |
| c. A.D. 200 | Oldest virtually complete gospel (John’s), Bodmer Papyrus, found in Egypt. |
| A.D. 325 | Council of Nicaea is convened by the Roman emperor Constantine. The divinity of Jesus is made official dogma by a vote of 217 to 3. |
| A.D. 393-397 | Council of Hippo, formalizing the New Testament, is finalized at Council of Carthage. |
THE FIRST CENTURY
| 4 B.C. | Death of King Herod. |
| A.D. 6 | Zealot uprising, led by Judas of Galilee. |
| A.D. 26 | Pontius Pilate appointed prefect of Judaea (until A.D. 36). |
| A.D. 36 | Pontius Pilate recalled to Rome and exiled. |
| A.D. 38 | Anti-Jewish riots and killings in Alexandria are encouraged by the prefect Flaccus. |
| A.D. 39 | Herod Antipas exiled to the French Pyrenees. |
| c. A.D. 44 | James, the brother of Jesus, is executed. |
| A.D. 46-48 | Tiberius Alexander is prefect of Judaea. |
| A.D. 64 | Burning of Rome under Nero. Arrest of Christians. |
| A.D. 66 | Jewish general in Roman army, Tiberius Alexander, is prefect of Egypt. Sends in his troops to put down revolt in Alexandria. Several thousand Jews are killed. |
| A.D. 66-73 | War in Judaea. Roman army under Vespasian invades through Galilee. |
| A.D. 67 | Josephus, a Jewish military leader in Galilee, defects to the Roman side following a defeat. Writes Jewish histories (The Jewish War, A.D. 77-78; The Antiquities of the Jews, c. 94) while living in the imperial palace in Rome. |
| A.D. 69 |
Vespasian is proclaimed emperor. Places his
|