Jesus the Armed Revolutionary?
The “Jesus-the-Armed-Revolutionary” view, much like “Jesus Mythicism,” pops up about every fifty years with the same poorly constructed arguments and gets knocked down by the same compelling counter-objections every time.
The most recent permutation of this view is the book by Reza Aslan called Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Now this book has been definitely and deservedly debunked, because it is riddled with errors and erroneous theories.
That said, if you put together the best version of this argument, it is not impossible to imagine Jesus as a zealous Jew, perhaps even an armed revolutionary!
Consider the following.
Jesus was from Galilee and grew up in the same vicinity where Judas the Galilean launched his rebellion not long after his birth. Jesus’s upbringing would have been shaped by the grievances of those who had suffered imperial violence when Roman legions put down the rebellion. Jesus’s message of the “kingdom of God,” again, resonates with Judas the Galilean’s message of “No king but God.” Jesus warned his followers that they must be willing to “take up their own cross” (Mk 8:34; Lk 9:23; Mt 10:38; 16:24) which is significant because crucifixion was the punishment for slaves, bandits, and enemies of the state. Plus, contempt for one’s own life – the preferment of death to slavery – is precisely what characterized zealous Jews. In addition, if Jesus did think of himself in messianic categories, there is ample evidence that an anointed leader would engage in a holy war against Israel’s enemies, either in a military action (e.g. Pss. Sol. 17) or as part of a coalition with angelic legions (e.g. 1QM). Jesus’s protest in the temple was in the very least deliberately disruptive, perhaps even seditious if it was intended to start a riot or revolution at the precise moment when the city was swelling with Jewish pilgrims celebrating God’s victory over pagan powers.[1] Among Jesus’s followers was one known explicitly as “Simon the Zealot” (Lk 6:16; Acts 1:13). Jesus’s followers were apparently armed with swords not gospel tracts and flowers when Jesus was arrested (Mk 14:47). Jesus was crucified among bandits (Gk. lestēs) on the charge of being a messianic pretender who had aspirations of being “king of the Jews” (Mk 15:26-27). Maybe Aslan was right!
Yet despite all that, we can be practically certain that Jesus himself was not a zealous Jew who believed that he was a militaristic messiah who was about to launch a holy war that would eject the Romans and their Herodian and priestly clients from Judea and Galilee.