The Failed Messiah Movement

During the time of Jesus, Jews hungered for a strong leader who would overthrow the tyrannical rule of the Romans and deliver them from persecution and oppression. A fanatical, extremely pious, Jewish sect called the Essenes were obsessed with the concept of a messianic strong man, probably influenced by John the Baptist’s view of such a leader and the writers of the New Testament. Jewish scholar Raphael Patai noted, “From the first century B.C.E., the Messiah was the central figure in the Jewish myth of the future.” There were actually many “messiahs” during this Roman period, before and after Jesus, many of whom the Romans crucified for claiming this status (Rome did not tolerate any hint of rebellion in the lands it ruled).

For example, around the time of the birth of Jesus, two Jewish messiahs tried to take over Palestine and liberate the Jews. Both took the opportunity to seize the leadership void opened by the demise of Herod. The first was Simon of Perea, a former slave of Herod’s, who convinced a large group of Jews that he was the new King of the Jews and God’s messiah. Soon after Roman authorities received word of what Simon was doing, they dispatched a military unit to capture this Jewish messiah and behead him. Ignoring the evidence of what could happen by declaring oneself a messiah, would-be Jewish messiah Anthronges raised a band of guerillas and created chaos throughout Roman-held Palestine at the same time of Simone of Perea. The Roman governor of Syria, General Publius Quinctilius Varus, put down Athronges’ rebellion in 4 B.C.E. Eventually, Varus captured all of Athronges’ lieutenants, four of whom were his brothers, and crucified them and 2,000 of their followers for inciting this rebellion. Although history is unclear about Athronges’ fate, he most likely was one of the men the Romans put up on crosses after putting down this Messianic rebellion.

One would have thought Jesus would have learned from the fates of Simon of Perea and Athronges about what happens to self-proclaimed “Kings of the Jews,” but he did not. Rome proved over and over again that it would put down any insurrection in Palestine by executing self-declared Jewish leaders and rebels, especially when they claimed messianic status (or in Jesus’ case, according to some interpretations, allowing his followers to say he was the messiah without rebuking them for doing so).

A much more successful messiah movement occurred right after the Romans executed Jesus. Theudas (circa 48 C.E.) convinced a much larger segment of Jews to follow him. Despite his success during his lifetime, he ended up just like Jesus—dead. Theudas led thousands of Jews to the Jordan river which he claimed would part for them (it did not), and the Romans soon thereafter captured him, beheaded him for being another seditionist and then brought back his head to Jerusalem to be displayed in the public square to show what happens to Jewish messiahs. Apparently, the killing of Jesus and his fellow messiahs before Theudas had not been a sufficient deterrent to prevent other Jewish messiahs from rearing their ill-fated heads.

Ten years after Theudas (circa 58 C.E), another Jewish messiah from Egypt, who possibly named himself King Messiah, led 30,000 Jews to the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem and declared that God was about to bring down the walls of the city, as in the story of Jericho. The Roman garrison once again dispatched troops, this time their cavalry along with the infantry, and ordered them to put down the rebellion and kill the leader and his followers. The Roman legionnaires dutifully slaughtered hundreds of these “believers” and pursued the new messiah, who, unlike Theudas and Jesus, was able to escape the sword and spear thrusts of the Romans. He went into hiding, never to be heard from again. Yet another failed messiah movement.

During the First Jewish Revolt (66-73 C.E.) against Rome, the Roman Empire crucified 500 or more Jews a day who resisted its rule. In total, this war cost the Jewish population 600,000 deaths. And once again, Jewish messiahs raised their ugly heads. During the First Jewish Revolt, a competing faction of Jews captured a messiah figure named Menachem ben Judah ben Hezekiah, who also, like Jesus in some parts of the New Testament (John 18: 33-34, 37), claimed royal and Messianic pretensions. After he was seized by his enemies, he was put to death.

Soon thereafter, one of the Jewish commanders who had rose up during this civil war, Simon bar Giora, was eventually cornered on the Temple mount in 70 C.E. He was garbed in purple (royal colors) and declared himself the King of the Jews. Emperor Titus seized this imposter, took him back to Rome and paraded him through the streets as a defeated king and then executed him in front of his citizens. Self-proclaimed kings of the Jews, like Jesus, Menachem ben Judah ben Hezekiah and Simon bar Giora, had very short lifespans under Roman rule.

A Jewish leader at this time who claimed he came from the line of David and a new kingdom was at hand, would be like having an American leader today claim he came from the line of one of the great generals, such as William Tecumseh Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant or Douglas MacArthur, and was about to establish a new country. Making such claims during Roman Times meant a Jew signed his own death warrant. And many of the unfortunate souls who followed him would also be slaughtered by the Romans, as history attests.

According to Jewish teachings during Jesus’s time, messiahs who failed to overthrow Roman rule were not worthy of being declared the second King David. There were many courageous, albeit foolish men, who thought they could take on the Roman Empire with a poorly organized and equipped Jewish citizenry because they felt God would be on their side. None of the descendants of King David and their misled disciples succeeded, and most were killed. 

Surprisingly, non-Jewish messiahs also sprang up during this time, showing that this cult was not exclusive to the Jewish people. Appollonius of Tyana was a spiritual leader who taught throughout the Roman Empire at the end of the first century C.E. He was reported to have healed the sick and raised the dead, just like Jesus. He preached a doctrine of monotheism and the one “True God,” and gave lessons on how people could be kind and loving to one another. Fearing how powerful Appollonius was becoming as thousands flocked to his movement, the Roman authorities arrested him and executed him in 98 C.E. His followers reported that he rose from the grave, preached to them and ascended to heaven, just like Jesus. It’s an enduring theme we see in the ancient world—illiterate, na?ve and ignorant people embroidering “the careers of notable figures of the past with common mythical and fictional embellishments,” according to intellectual Michael Shermer.

The followers of another Messiah, Bar Kochba, from 132-135 C.E. would have been wise to remember what Rome had already done to Simon of Perea, Athronges, Jesus, Theudas, the Egyptian King Messiah, Simon bar Giora, and Appollonius, but they did not. They were soundly defeated in brutal battles and extermination actions that killed 850,000 Jews. Emperor Hadrian personally oversaw operations and made sure that this was one of the last times a Jewish messiah ever led a revolt against the Roman Empire. He dispersed Jews who survived so that pesky, foolhardy, religious fanatics like Jesus and Bar Kochba would never pester another Roman ruler. According to historians William G. Sinnigen, and Arthur E. R. Boak, Hadrian was quite successful during his “genocidal repression of the rebellion” to prevent potential seditious elements from happening in the future. This period marked massive forced emigration of Jewish communities throughout the world, most notably throughout the Middle East and Europe, building out the diaspora even more.

While these messiah figures (except Appollonius) drew strength and support from the claim they descended from King David, where in Judaic tradition did this claim that Davidic pedigree was necessary to become a Messiah come from? When King David ruled Israel (circa 10th century B.C.E.), the conviction arose that his progeny would “rule forever, not only over Israel but also over all the nations” (2 Samuel 22:48-52; Psalms 18:42-50). Isaiah also talked of universal peace being established by the “shoot out of the stock of Jesse [David’s father].” According to historian Geza Vermes, King David was “eternally memorable” not only because he was a “crucial political and religious leader,” but also “because he so moved the imagination of his own people and of other peoples after them,” that he was the ultimate military and spiritual advisor par excellence. “A man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). Historian Richard Friedman further explains,

…[the main] reason for the singular place that David holds among biblical figures [is because of the]… large amount of source material on him in the Bible [compared to] other figures…[and because] David established an enduring line of kings descended from him. The Davidic dynasty was in fact one of the longest-lasting ruling families of any country in the history of the world. Hence the powerful endurance of the messiah tradition in Judaism and Christianity—the trust that there would always be a descendant of David at hand in an hour of distress.

Friedman further states, “The Davidic covenant, therefore, became a promise only that the throne was eternally available to David’s family. Even if it was unoccupied at the present, there was always the possibility that a descendant of David, a messiah, might come someday and rule justly. The implications for Judaism and Christianity were, of course, tremendous.”

There were many reasons why the Gospels of Luke and Matthew go to such extraordinary lengths to “prove” Jesus came from the line of David. What is hopefully not unnoticed by the reader, is the Jewish chauvinism here that the hereditary line of David will create super-human leaders who in the end will dominate the enemies of the Jews and bring about an empire that will control the entire earth. These messianic desires show that the ancient religious Jewish community desired a xenophobic future with Jews ruling the world, and this is what many of Jesus’s followers actually wanted to see transpire. But Jesus’ movement never had the military necessary in order to overthrow the Roman Empire, much less the whole world, and thus, the Jews were not even close to becoming autonomous at the time under his leadership. 

As far as we know, Jesus did not know how to wield a sword, lead men in battle or handle the logistics of a military campaign. He could never have overthrown Rome in battle, which is what the Jewish people needed from a Messiah and was foretold in their writings. Jesus was anything but a warrior. Had King David met Jesus, he would have found him unfit as a soldier and incapable of military command. If Jesus was indeed a “shoot out of the sock of Jesse,” King David would have been disappointed to have been related to him. As the commentators to the The New Jerusalem Bible wrote, Jews rejected Jesus “as they found that his gentle and other-worldly conception of the Messiah did not fulfill their hopes.” New Testament scholar, Bart Ehrman, eloquently sums up the problems described in this section: “To call Jesus the messiah was for most Jews completely ludicrous. Jesus was not the powerful leader of the Jews. He was a weak and powerless nobody—executed in the most humiliating and painful way devised by the Romans, the ones with the real power.” And in the end, as we have seen with all the messiahs documented here, they were not true Jewish messiahs because they were unsuccessful in their missions and were killed by the Romans or competing factions.

There has never been a messiah by the Jewish definition. History teaches us this truth. As German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, wrote, “Lack of a historical sense is the original error of all philosophers.” To know that Jesus failed as a messiah and that he stood in a long line of other failed messiahs helps one understand the real history of the time period, and thus, to not draw false philosophies from false history. 

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