THE MACCABEES AND HEROD
| 401 B.C. | Rebuilding of the Jewish temple on Elephantine Island, Aswan, southern Egypt, is completed. |
| 332 B.C. | Alexander the Great invades Israel and Egypt. |
| 323 B.C. | Death of Alexander. His generals split his empire: after years of struggle, Ptolemy takes Egypt, and Seleucis takes Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Israel at first is ruled by Ptolemy. |
| 170 B.C. | The Seleucid ruler of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes, invades Judaea and Egypt. Onias III, high priest of the temple, flees to Egypt with many priests. Establishes a Jewish temple in Egypt. |
| 169 B.C. | Syrians invade Judaea a second time. Temple is looted. |
| 167 B.C. | Syrians again invade, massacre populace of Jerusalem, and rededicate the Temple to Zeus. The Temple priest, Mattathias (of the Hasmonean dynasty), and his sons begin a revolt against the Syrians. |
| 166 B.C. | Mattathias dies. His son, Judas Maccabee, takes over command. |
| 160 B.C. | Judas Maccabee is defeated and killed. His brother Jonathan takes command. |
| 152 B.C. | Jonathan is appointed high priest of the Temple in Jerusalem. |
| 143 B.C. | Jonathan is imprisoned. His brother Simon becomes high priest and ruler of Judaea. |
| 142 B.C. | Judaea becomes independent under Simon, who forms an alliance with the Romans. |
| 134 B.C. | Simon is killed. His son John Hyrcanus succeeds him as high priest and ruler of Judaea. |
| 104 B.C. | Aristobulus rules and takes the title of King of Judaea (of the Hasmonean dynasty). |
| 103-76 B.C. | Alexander Jannaeus is king and high priest of Judaea. |
| 67-63 B.C. | Aristobulus II is king and high priest of Judaea. |
| 63 B.C. | The Roman general Pompey takes Jerusalem. |
| 37 B.C. | Herod marries Mariamne, granddaughter of Ju daean King Aristobulus II. Herod takes Jerusalem and becomes king. |
| 4. B.C. | Death of King Herod. |
But the Jewish authorities, representatives of the priestly Sadducees, did care; they wanted him dead. Those in Jesus’s small community of disciples were powerless to protect him and could only watch helplessly as the tragedy unfolded. So if his escape did not serve some purpose of either the Roman or Jewish authorities, who did have cause and power enough to make it happen, one would think that such an escape would have been impossible. And yet, there are enough hints in the gospel accounts to give one pause for thought. The situation is not as clear-cut as it is presented.
First, and importantly, crucifixion was historically the punishment for a political crime. According to the Gospels, however, Pilate gave Jesus over to the mobs, who then brayed for his execution on the basis of religious dissent. The Jewish execution for this particular transgression was death by stoning. Crucifixion was a Roman punishment reserved for sedition, not religious eccentricity. This contradiction alone illustrates that the Gospels are not reporting the matter truthfully. Could they be trying to hide some vital aspects of the events from us? Trying to blame the wrong people perhaps?
Jesus was, we can be certain, sentenced for execution on the basis of political crimes. We can also be certain that it was the Romans, not the Jewish authorities, who called the shots, whatever spin the Gospels might try to put on it. And the Gospels certainly spun the message to the point that modern Christians still find the suggestion of any political action on the part of Jesus to be outrageously, even dangerously, “off-message.” Yet it has been over fifty years since Professor Samuel Brandon of Manchester University in England drew attention to this critical theological distortion: “The crucial fact remains uncontested that the fatal sentence was pronounced by the Roman governor and its execution carried out by Roman officials.”2 Brandon continued:
It is certain that the movement connected with [Jesus] had at least sufficient semblance of sedition to cause the Roman authorities both to regard him as a possible revolutionary and, after trial, to execute him as guilty on such a charge.3
In fact, in later years Brandon became blunter, perhaps exasperated with those who continued to ignore this important fact: “All enquiry,” he wrote forcefully, allowing little room for doubt on the matter, “concerning the historical Jesus must start from the fact of his execution by the Romans for sedition.”4
We will find that we are dealing not only with the intricacies of religion but with the machinations of politics. Even today not all the mines have been cleared.
Apart from the brutal mode of execution, we are left to wonder whether there is any other suggestion in the Gospels that the Romans were ultimately in charge and that the crime involved was sedition rather than contravention of Jewish teachings.
The answer: indeed there is. Jesus was crucified between two other men, described as thieves in the English translations of the Bible. However, if we go back to the original Greek text, we find that they are not called thieves at all there but are described as lestai, which, strictly speaking, translates as “brigands” but which was, in Greek, the official name for the “Zealots,” the Judaean freedom fighters who were dedicated to ridding Judaea of its Roman occupation (Matthew 27:38).5 The Romans considered them to be terrorists.
The Zealots were not just seeking some kind of political land grab but had a less venal motive: they were concerned, above all else, with the legitimacy of the priests serving in the Temple of Solomon and, in particular, with the legitimacy of the high priest—who was, at the time, appointed by the Herodian rulers.6 They wanted priests who were “sons of Aaron,” priests of the bloodline of Aaron, the brother of Moses, of the Tribe of Levi, who founded the Israelite priesthood and was the first high priest of Israel. “The sons of Aaron” had become the term used to describe the sole legitimate line of priests in ancient Israel.
The undeniable implication