Chapter 4.13
The Zealots
Sicarii; the Dagger People, Good guys or Bad
guys?
Masada; last Zealot Outpost, Muslims Zealots.
Is Allah the same god as the Jews and Christians?
Background
Zelotes
is a Greek word meaning “Zealous One”; Simon the Zelotes was a disciple of Jesus.
TAX
TIME: At
the time of the birth of Jesus, a decree went out from Cesar Augustus that
everyone in the Roman world must be taxed, especially the Jews. Quirinius was to compile a census of the Jews
and to make a detailed notation of their property holdings.[1]
The Zealot
Resistance was founded
in the time of Quirinius around 6 to 7 A.D by a Galilean named Judas
and a Pharisee
by the name of Zadok. The Zealots were an underground political party; a fanatical
Jewish sect that militantly opposed the Roman domination of Palestine. Judas the Galilean
led the Zealots
in an ill-fated revolt against the Romans; he was killed and his followers
scattered, but the Zealot Resistance lived on.
The Romans had ordered a census to be
taken of the Jews for the purpose of TAXATION and the Zealots objected for two main
reasons.
1)
FIRST; The Zealots took the position that no
one should be honored as Lord or King but God Jehovah, so they rejected the
foreign rule of the Romans.
2)
SECOND; to pay taxes to an Emperor was considered Idolatry
and blasphemous to God.
A
Holy War with overwhelming odds had already been fought and won fulfilling Gods
promises to Israel, so the Zealots believed that God was a God of War[2] and that they would receive victory in any situation
that they were in.
The Zealots mantras was; “NO
RULE BUT THE LAW, NO KING BUT GOD”. They were greatly feared as they would kill
you in cold blood just because you were a Roman. They had hope for a Messiah that would
overthrow the Roman Government and restore the kingdom to Israel. Two Disciples; Judas Iscariot and Simon the
Zealot held the same “political views” and believed that Jesus was “The Man” that had come to restore Israel.
The Pharisees thought that the Roman oppression was the
hand of God because of Israel’s disobedience and in time would be lifted off
and their land restored. The Zealots fanatical
“violence”
would eventually provoke the Roman War which ended with the destruction of the
Temple in 70 A.D. The Zealots played a
heroic role in the defense of Jerusalem.
NOTE: As I read through the Commentaries, I
find some that want to CONDEMN the Zealots for starting the Roman War
and others that call them HEROS. I leave it to you to
decide.
Acts 5:37 –
Judas the Galilean Zealot led a revolt against Rome
37 After him, JUDAS
THE GALILEAN appeared
in the days of the census and LED A BAND OF
PEOPLE IN REVOLT. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. NIV
Jesus a Zealot
The Pharisees tried to get
Jesus connected with The Zealot Resistance Movement by asking him the question; “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar”?
Mark
13 Later they sent some of the Pharisees and
Herodians to Jesus
TO CATCH HIM IN
HIS WORDS.
14 They came to him and said, "Teacher, we
know you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no
attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the
truth. IS IT RIGHT TO PAY TAXES TO
CAESAR OR NOT?
15 Should we pay or shouldn't we?"
But Jesus knew their hypocrisy.
"WHY ARE YOU
TRYING TO TRAP ME?" he asked.
"Bring me a denarius and let me look at it."
16 They brought the coin, and he asked them,
"Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" -
"Caesar's," they replied.
17 Then Jesus said to them,
"GIVE TO CAESAR WHAT IS
CAESAR'S
AND TO GOD WHAT IS GOD'S." NIV
Sicarii – The Dagger
People
The Zealots around 52 to 60
A.D. formed a radical group known as The Sicarii (dagger people) indicative of
their tactics, who circulated in crowds during festivals and killed Roman
sympathizers with daggers they concealed in their clothing. That certainly would include TAX COLLECTORS for Rome who
were for the most part JEWS.
The Sicarii were devoted
supporters of God and His laws and secretly engaged in acts of intrigue,
violence, force, deceptions plus ASSASSINATIONS of Roman
soldiers and anyone else that opposed the resistance in order to keep it from
achieving its liberating ends.
The
secret Zealot sect; the Sicarii had
escaped the war with Rome and were the ones that had made their headquarters on
top of the rock MASADA.
Masada – Last Zealot
Outpost
Masada was a plateau on the top of an isolated rock
formation some 330 feet higher on the West side than its surroundings of the Judean Desert and some 1,300 feet
above the Dead Sea on the East side. The plateau was huge; big enough for an entire
village of a thousand.
Around 40 A.D. on an upper terrace, King Herod built for himself a 36,000 square foot palace with
royal living quarters as a place of refuge for his family. It had
a large Roman style bath house and a few storehouses for food and supplies and
a few residential and administrative buildings as well and
also dug out two additional lower terraces below the palace.
Then he constructed a DOUBLE wall about
4,590 feet in circumference around the top of the site with some 30 towers containing 70 rooms for protection, making it
virtually impregnable.
However, in 66 A.D the Zealots captured the fortified stronghold from the Romans
and turned it into their fortress for some 7 years.
Then the Romans turned the tables on the Zealots and built a ramp 645
feet long and 200 feet high and with catapults bombarded the walls of Masada,
finally breaking through the FIRST wall then they
set the SECOND wall on fire and planned to return the
next day to FINISH
OFF THE ZEALOTS.
JOSPHUS the Jewish Historian reports that the Zealots leader Eleazar gave a speech to the remaining
Zealots, painting a picture of the indignities and dishonor that was to befall
them at the hands of the Romans and they decided to kill themselves rather than
face dishonor. Each man killed his own
family; then…
Josephus 7.9.1 - Then they
chose ten men by lot out of them, to slay all the rest; every one of whom had
laid himself down by his wife and children on the ground, and threw his arms
about them, and they offered their necks to the stroke of those who by lot
executed that melancholy office; and when these ten had without fear slain them
all, they made the same rule for casting lots for themselves, that he whose lot
it was should first kill the other nine , and after all, should kill himself.
May 2, 73 A.D. - When the
Romans broke through the remaining wall, they found 960 men, women and children had committed suicide,
choosing death rather than endure the shame of being a slave and serving the
Romans. Two women and five children who had hid in
a cavern were left alive to tell the story of what had happened. The Zealots had burned all their personal
possessions and supplies, but purposely left the food so that they could show
the Romans they had chosen death over dishonor.
The
militant Zealots had led the nation of Israel to a
disastrous
defeat which turned most Jews against them.
Josephus
– Every serious
Bible Student needs this reference book in their library.
Antiquities of the Jews is a twenty-volume historiographical work
composed by the Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus containing an account of the history
of the Jewish people. He was born into a family of Priest about
four years after the death of Jesus Christ and lived for a time with the ESSENES who gave us the Dead Sea
Scrolls; he became a Pharisee
at the age of 19 and later became a high
priest and the governor of
Galilee. He was not a follower of THE WAY, yet his writings exalted the man
Jesus; and would pause and say “if I can call Him a man”, inferring He was more than a
man; He was Deity.
The Grace of God
Matthew
was a Tax Collector, a Publican and also one of the twelve
Disciples of Jesus. Taxes on transported
goods were collected by “Local Contracted
Collectors” who paid an agreed-upon sum in advance to the
Romans, for the right to collect taxes in their area. They in turn kept any excess that could be
squeezed out of the people.
Tax Collectors called Publicans
were despicable,
vile, unprincipled scoundrels that
extorted money from the people to line their own pockets. They were the most despised if not most hated
people in Israel. They were regarded as TRAITORS working for the Romans. Tax collectors were banned from the Temple and could not go there to worship or sacrifice.
Simon the “Zealot” also known as “Simon the Canaanite” was also one of the
twelve Disciples and not a lot is known about Simon, but scripture says, he
gave up everything to follow Jesus. Zealots
were opposed to paying taxes to a pagan King, and since Matthew was a tax
collector for the Romans, Simon “in a heartbeat” would have probably killed him
with his dagger; but was saved only by the grace of God; now they were both BROTHERS; they were Disciples of Christ.
The transforming grace of God molded “The Zealous One” to
have zeal on behalf of the Gospel.
GOD IS STILL TRANSFOMING
PEOPLE TODAY
Acts 1:13 – The
Disciple Simon was a Zealot
13 Those present were Peter, John, James and
Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and SIMON THE ZEALOT, and Judas son of James.
NIV
Matthew 9:9 – Disciple
Matthew; a Tax Collector for the Romans.
9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named
MATTHEW SITTING AT
THE TAX COLLECTOR'S BOOTH.
"Follow me," he told him, and
Matthew got up and followed him. NIV
Muslim Zealots
Today we no longer have
a sect that is ZEALOUS for JEHOVAH GOD, let along Jesus Christ ALLAH (Arabic) is a
contraction of “Al”
meaning sole or only, and “Lah” meaning God. Before the birth of Islam, Allah
was a term used by pagan religions for ALL
their different gods. This term provided
a common ground between pagan Arabs, Muslims, Jews and Christians. Muslims have 99 names for God with the word Allah
connected to it.
SAME
GOD:
Muslims insist that their god Allah is the SAME
GOD as
of the Jews;
the God of Abraham. The name Allah
is deemed more powerful than the name YAHWEH. Muslims believe JESUS, the son of
Mary said, “I am a messenger of “Allah”, bringing good tidings of a messenger who comes after me, whose
name is ‘the
praised one,” His name is “MOHAMMAD”.
Christians reject all this.
The Quran given to Mohammad,
the “Last Prophet”, is the perfect revelation of Allah.
The Hadith is a collection
of sayings, deeds and behavior of Mohammad including; eating, sleeping,
praying, mating, planning revenge on his enemies and dispensing justice. These actions were considered the actual
actions of “Allah”.
The Hadith in some
sects is followed more closely than the Quran and its sayings can supersede the
Quran.
Sura 4:157 – Christ did not die on the cross, but was
made to appear so.
Sura 5:75 – Christ,
the son of Mary was no more than a messenger. Many were the messengers that
passed away before him.
Sura 19:96 – Allah has no affection for any
creature. Love is conditional on GOOD WORKS.
Sura 3:129 – Allah has PREDESTINED some to paradise
and some to hell.
Sura 32:13 – Allah sends to hell whomever he
wants. He created a multitude of spirits
and men specifically for the purpose of sending them to hell.
Sura 9:5 – When the sacred months have passed, slay
the idolaters wherever ye find them, seize them; lie in wait for them in every
stratagem (of
war).
Hadith 2:483 – I have been ordered to fight the people
till they say, Allah be worshipped.
Sura 9:29 – Muslims are inspired to fight people who
do not accept the religion of Islam.
Sura 5:33 – Those who wage war against Allah and his
messenger, (there fate) is execution or
crucifixion or the cutting off of hands and feet on opposite sides or exile.
Hadith 9:57 – Whoever changes his Islamic religion
should be killed.
A good Muslim will do all
these things as well as name their children Mohammad.
Mohammad said “He, who
relinquishes his faith; kill him. I have
been ordered by Allah to fight with people till they testify there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger
Hadith 1:505 – Anyone who dies in a Jihad will have a
prominent place in paradise.
Hadith 9:459 – Anyone who engages in a holy war (jihad)
will be admitted into paradise with his reward of booty.
Sura 78:33 – In paradise man can have many WOMEN.
Ayatollah Khomeini said “The purest
joy in Islam is to kill and to be killed for Allah”. There can be no peace with the Jews or
Christians or any other non-Islamic people; and that if peace must be made,
only a truce is permissible and that “for a maximum of 10 years as an expedient
to hone our swords, whet our blood and strengthen our will.”
Islamic Extremist: If you follow Islam,
and are committed to the Quran and the Hadith, then “extremism”
is just a normal part of everyday life.
The
Muslim mission is to convert or kill the infidel in the name of Allah.
MUSLIM
ZEALOTS
The
Dagger people who will kill themselves in order to kill you.
It’s
in the Hadith.
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