Jesus’ Context
Historical Background
To fully understand Jesus’ context, it’s helpful to begin with a brief summary of the Jewish people’s historical background.
The Jewish nation ceased to exist as an independent political entity in 587 B.C. when the country was conquered by the Babylonians. The city of Jerusalem, together with its temple, was destroyed, and many of the Jews were exiled to Babylon. The Jews in Babylon gathered in synagogues and managed to maintain their identity throughout the period of captivity. In 538 B.C., when the Persians conquered the Babylonians, the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland. During this period the Jews were allowed to rebuild their temple and develop their own religious life, but were stripped of any political power.
When Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, the Jews accepted him as a liberator. He asked only for tribute and cooperation and left the people free to follow their own religious practices. But by 175 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes, Greek ruler in Syria, began to levy additional taxes and to sell the office of high priest to the highest bidder. Then, with the cooperation of one of the high priests, he tried to convert the Jews to Greek ways. On penalty of death, he prohibited the Jews from practicing circumcision, celebrating religious festivals, and observing the sabbath. He ordered all copies of the Jewish law destroyed and anyone caught owning one punished. He set up an altar to the Greek god Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem and sacrificed pigs before the sacred Holy of Holies.
Faithful Jews regarded these bans and acts of desecration as threats to their existence as a people. A group called the Hasidim or “pious ones” refused to conform, even though this refusal might mean martyrdom. They pledged themselves to fight against Greek influences in the name of God and in defense of their right to live according to their own law.
This fight against the Greeks came to be known as the Maccabean revolt, so named after the leader, Judas Maccabeus. Though the Jews had no trained army or equipment, and almost no financial backing, they fought with zeal, bravery, and ingenuity and finally won their independence. In December, 165 B.C., the temple was cleansed and re-established as the traditional Jewish place of worship. This event is commemorated today in the festival of Hanukkah, or the “Feast of Lights.”
The Jewish kings who ruled over the newly independent state were known as Hasmoneans. Under their rule the boundaries of the Jewish kingdom were expanded nearly to their extent at the time of King David. Factions developed within the new state, however, and by 67 B.C. two Jewish aspirants to the throne went to Syria to seek support from the Roman general, Pompey. Representatives of a third group asked Pompey to restore the Jewish nation to is pre-Maccabean nonpolitical status.
Pompey arrived in Jerusalem in 63 B.C., and the political independence of the Jews was once more brought to an end. From this time on, Rome ruled in Palestine.
In 40 B.C. the Roman emperor appointed Herod as ruler of both Judea and Samaria. Herod was in many ways a successful ruler. His contributions to the prosperity of Israel and the intrigues and murders with which he buttressed his insecure throne are well known. When Herod died in 4 B.C., the kingdom was divided among his three sons: Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Philip. Philip, who governed northeast Palestine, seems to have ruled his area well. Herod Antipas became ruler of Galilee and was still reigning when John the Baptist and Jesus carried on their activities. Archelaus proved himself totally incompetent, and after ten years the territory of Judea was put under the control of the Roman procurators, of whom Pontius Pilate is the best known.
The Roman procurators ruled over a deeply troubled territory, highly resentful of alien control. The Romans did not understand the fierce loyalty of the Jews to a religion that to them seemed barbarous and superstitious, and they had continually to deal with Jewish leaders who declared themselves sent by God to deliver the land from its oppressors.
As the Romans devised more and more ruthless means to stamp out such religious nationalism, the resistance became more fanatical. Bands of men called Zealots travelled with daggers in their sleeves, ready at an instant’s notice to instigate revolution. Their watchword was “no king but God.” By the time of the procurator Florus (A.D. 64-66) sporadic fighting followed by arrests and crucifixions had become common. In A.D. 66 open revolt finally broke out and in A.D. 70 the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. This ended Jewish national existence for nineteen centuries.
It was in the time of smoldering resentment and unrest, about 40 years prior to the break into open rebellion, that Jesus came preaching “God is One and Thou shalt Love….”
Jesus’ Ministry and the Expectations of his Hearers
To understand what Jesus sought to convey to his hearers at this time about the Kingdom of God, it’s important to first know something of what was already in the mind of those hearers. That involves an understanding of the expectations held by the Jewish people at that time as to how the Kingdom of God would come about. This was something on which there were various views, two of which stand out predominantly. One was that it would come through the arrival of a political messiah, the other was that it would come through the arrival of an apocalyptic messiah.
Political vs APOCALYPTIC Messianism
Political messianism looked for God’s intervention in human history to establish the Kingdom of God on earth and restore Israel to its rightly favored status. This would be accomplished through the agency of a human being who was to be God’s anointed, as were Saul and David, the two first kings of the Jews. [The word “messiah” from the Hebrew, precisely like “christ” (christos) from the Greek, means literally “anointed.” All the kings of Israel were, therefore, messiahs.] Most of the Zealots expected the intervention of a political messiah.
Apocalyptic messianism was based on an expectation that God would intervene directly in human history in some cataclysmic event, establishing the Kingdom of God not on earth, but in heaven. The righteous would be “saved” and ascend to God’s Kingdom, while the sinners would be cast into an “unquenchable fire.” John the Baptist most famously gave voice to the apocalyptic vision.
In Jesus’ time, both messianic visions were gaining significant momentum and influence, all but ensuring a direct, and as we now know, disastrous, confrontation with the Romans.
Jesus’ mission, Sharman believed, was shaped by this reality, and informed by three critical insights:
He rejected both the apocalyptic and political expectations as ungrounded fantasy.
He understood that a violent, confrontational approach with the Romans would ultimately result in the near total annihilation of the Jewish people.
He believed that the salvation of his people could be found in a deeper understanding of their own religious tradition, which he believed was being obstructed and perverted by the priestly class.
These radical insights, and the teachings that followed from them, earned Jesus the dangerous enmity of two powerful groups:
The members of the “establishment”: the priestly class and the ‘strict constructionists’ of the law (the scribes and Pharisees); and also the conservative and affluent Sadducees.
The Zealots: the fanatical and violent political messianists.
For the first group Jesus was a dangerous heretic who threatened the very foundations of their traditional views. He must, therefore, be removed from the scene.
For the second group — the Zealots — the message of Jesus, if believed and followed, struck at the core of their whole philosophy and activity. It seems clear that at the end of Jesus’ life, the Zealots would be the ones most loudly shouting. “Crucify him!” And they would be the ones demanding the release of Barabbas, one of their own number. If the Romans would take Jesus out of the way, that would save the Zealots the perceived necessity, the trouble, and the danger of doing it themselves.
The Zealots were a sect of the Jews which arose during the boyhood of Jesus in his own province of Galilee. They believed, according to a centuries-old Jewish hope, that God would deliver them from foreign rule and reestablish the Jewish hegemony, a theocracy with a divinely appointed King, a “messiah.” They believed, however, that God’s intervention in human history on behalf of His chosen people required first that the initiative be taken by the people themselves. In accordance with that view an individual Zealot would take the lead, gather a following, and launch an insurrection. The inevitable consequence was a massacre by the invincible Roman troops. Each successive revolt the Romans would put down with increasing ruthlessness.
Jesus foresaw the inevitable result: the total destruction of the Jewish nation and of its center, Jerusalem and the Temple. As mentioned previously, within 40 years that was the outcome of the war waged by Rome between the years 66 and 70 A.D. It was in 70 A.D. that Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed.
For a fuller exploration of Jesus’ context, listen to the audio commentary below. It’s a recording of a lecture given in the 1970s by Emilia Rathbun, who, together with her husband, Harry Rathbun, studied with Dr. Sharman and carried on his work.