Masada (with author's permission)
Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate some time between 27 and 30 C.E. We could know a lot more than we do about what actually happened. But in its efforts to erase every record that contradicted the views of the “Holy” Roman Empire in the fourth century, the Church shot itself in the foot.
Historians know the Romans kept meticulous records of trials such as the one of Jesus in the first century. But after several centuries of edicts to destroy every single writing considered hostile to Christianity, the Roman records of his trial and crucifixion no longer exist.
This total absence of external records is often cited by non-Christians as evidence that Jesus himself never existed. And that assessment is partially correct. The fact that we have records of the Church ordering the destruction of writings that contradicted the official story proves there were such writings. Someone wrote about a different Jesus. After centuries of deletions, redactions, and book burnings, one thing is clear. There were at one time, writings that forcefully contradicted the version of “Jesus” that has been passed down to us.
The other Jesus was the man with parents, brothers and sisters who was crucified for insurrection against Rome. Between the time of his death (probably 27 C.E., but most often dated around 30 C.E.) and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E., his family, his disciples, and those who knew him best went on with their lives.
Unlike the writers of the New Testament Gospels who never met him, who lived outside of Judea, and who wrote their accounts after almost everyone who actually did know him was dead, these people from Jesus’ inner-circle went on to endure unimaginable trauma for the next forty years.
In Part I we took a brief look at a famous turncoat named Josephus who wrote the only surviving eye-witness accounts of what happened to these people. He, like the New Testament writers referred to them as Zealots. Unlike his brief reference to Jesus that historians know was dramatically altered if not completely fabricated by fourth century Christians, his accounts of the Zealots seem to be accurate. At least they agree with other sources and the Dead Sea Scrolls in their details.
But why, you may ask, did the Church leave these records untouched? The answer is that the Church had no issue with these records. By the middle of the second century, the Church had deified Jesus. In the process, it had so distanced him from his actual family that their histories were no longer perceived to be a threat to Christian doctrine. What happened to them was beyond the boundaries of the story the fourth century Church was interested in publishing.
In fact, the lives of these people seem inconsequential to the architects of the Gentile Christian movement; so much so that even though their virtual annihilation occurred before the composition of the earliest of the Gospels, with the exception of a few (after the fact) prophetic references, the New Testament is silent on the subject.
Four years after the the murder of Jesus’ brother Yaakov (“Jacob” but known today by the Gentile name of ”James”), the people of Jerusalem faced the end of everything. From the first wave of the seige of Jerusalem which began in 66 C.E. until the final destruction of the Temple complex in 70 C.E., life for them was unbearable.
After several consecutive attacks, a bloody massacre, and literally thousands of crucifixions, most of the people who had known Jesus and his family were dead. Just before the final seige, some had escaped to Zealot outposts.
Nine hundred and sixty people including rebel fighters, women and children barracaded themselves in the last major stronghold, the fortress of Masada south of Jerusalem. They watched the smoke in the distance as the only homes they ever knew burned to the ground. They well knew that the rest of their families and everything they cared most about was going up in that smoke.
Under their commander, Eleazar ben Yair, the “Zealots” at Masada survived in relative safety for the next two years. They only came out of the fortress at night to initiate guerilla attacks against Roman troops.
All of that changed in 72 C.E. The night-time raids on Roman garrisons were beginning to embarrass the Empire. The new Procurator of Judea, Flavius Silva led the Tenth Legion along with slaves and additional troops to begin the siege of Masada.
It took months for the Roman soldiers to build an earthen ramp on the west side of the mountain (the remains of which can still be seen in the lower right hand corner of the photograph above) under the continuous barrage of arrows and stones that were hurled onto them from above.
On top of the ramp, the Romans erected a platform out of large stones, fortified with iron. With the platform in place, they began to attack the stone casemate wall surrounding the top of the fortress with their battering rams.
But the Zealots had built a second casemate wall out of heavy timbers and filled it with dirt. The dirt absorbed the shock of the battering rams. The harder they rammed, the tighter the dirt was compacted.
On the final day, Silva ordered his soldiers to set fire to the timbers of the secondary wall. The fires would burn all night. It was clear that on the following morning, there would be nothing left to prevent the Romans from forcing their way in.
The Zealots knew they were finished. They resolved to kill themselves before the Romans got to them. All died that night with the exception of two women and five children that had hidden in an aqueduct. When the Romans pushed through on the following morning, there was nothing for them to capture. There would be two more major uprisings by the remnants of the people of Judea before the end of the last revolt in 135 C.E. But those who knew Jesus and his brothers were gone. Their stories were burried with the Jerusalem Temple.
Copyright © 2012, Rick D. Massey, JD
