The capacity for prayer is significant for understanding who/what we are, but there is no way nor reason for us that to separate us from there rest of the living world. I don’t think human beings make much sense apart from our inclusion in God’s creation. We are special but so is everything else God has created and we are not smart enough to reshape that world to support only us. It is hubris to try which is always dangerous. Without worrying about who/what else may pray, it tells a lot about us that we do. I know why I think that, why do you?
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Absolutely. Still, one could try to make room for it by arguing either that Thomism is mistaken on this point, or that God could miraculously preserve personal identity in some way and then, for lack of a better term, “restore” or “reinstantiate” it, in the resurrected, glorified body. But that would be a considerable stretch.
In any case, I would argue that this would be the least of our concerns, because the entire epistemic framework of Revelation would become a paper tiger.
It would be dramatic and definitely an existentially-threatening situation. The more I think about it the more I thank God for it being just an hypothetical.
I agree that we are a part of the physical world and exist in relation to other things. But I think what I put in bold is flatly false for most people who don’t consider animals capable of “immoral” behavior. I’ve never seen someone seriously try to claim a male dog sexually assaults and rapes a female dog when it mounts her from behind in a reproductive act. A dog doesn’t understand justice, autonomy or personal consent. It only has a sensory soul. It’s not hubris to distinguish creatures with complex language that are able to reason and understand abstract concepts (like triangularity) as different from the rest. It is common sense from my perspective. There is nothing noble about forcing something to be otherwise than it is so we should not pretend a dog is a human in the metaphysical sense. Viewing all life the same is to engage in conceptual violence against the very nature of things and what makes them distinct from one another to begin with. Given final causality teaches there is a built in purpose/end/telos of all things, this is metaphysically true as well.
So I don’t think the prayer reasoning is far off. I think one might be able to cogently argue prayer is an act of the intellect and will and something that belongs to rational agents. But I think there are other things that would also be included along with prayer in this. The end of the intellect is to seek truth and seeking truth allows the will to act for the good. The absolute source of all truth is God and to know the highest good is of course to know God and prayer is a huge part of that.
Vinnie
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I don’t disagree with much of what you say here. Cognitively we have dimensions no other animal comes close to. But intuitively many animals greatly outpace us. The average dog’s capacity for love, forgiveness and trust far exceeds what most of us manifest.
I’m inclined to say we need to pray because we are separate from God. To me that is what our fallen nature is all about. I don’t base that on what any authority says on the subject and don’t pretend to know about theology. I think we have God on board all the time but most often just don’t tune Him in. If we did we wouldn’t require prayer either.
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I was only trying to explain the difference of Adam and Eve. Scientists are looking for the Missing Link, Praying to me is the Missing Link and Adam and Eve had it. Yes, This Creation is Special, The Moody Blues album “In Search of the lost Chord” indicates “ This God and Universe vibrates Complete”.
Not to mention that, if consciousness were proven to be wholly material in both its origin and nature, the consequences would extend even beyond the rejection of an immaterial soul, for such a discovery would also dismantle the classical doctrine of free will.
This is because the classical Christian understanding of freedom isn’t satisfied by the mere experience of choosing, nor by the simple fact that one acts in accordance with one’s own desires: rather, it presupposes that the human person is, in a meaningful and irreducible sense, a genuine originator of action.
Under a fully material account of consciousness every thought, desire, intention, and act of deliberation would arise from prior physical states of the brain, the body, and the surrounding environment. Even if these processes were extraordinarily complex, they would still belong to a causal order governed by material conditions and, in that case, a human decision would no longer to be the expression of a self-determining subject, but the terminus of a causal sequence whose decisive conditions were already in place before the person became reflectively aware of “choosing.”
The sense of agency might remain phenomenologically vivid, but its metaphysical depth would be radically diminished.
And this is where compatibilism fails hard to resolve the difficulty: compatibilism claims that freedom is compatible with determinism, because an act can still count as free if it proceeds from the agent’s own internal states (his desires, intentions, or character) rather than from external coercion. On this view, I act freely if I do what I want, even if what I want is itself causally determined.
But this move doesn’t preserve freedom in the robust sense required by classical moral and theological thought, it merely relocates necessity from the outside to the inside. The decisive point isn’t whether my action came from my own desires rather than from a gun to my head, the real issue is whether I am, in any ultimate sense, the author of those desires. If my motives, dispositions, and acts of will are themselves wholly produced by prior material causes that I didn’t choose and couldn’t have fundamentally altered, then my action may be voluntary, but it isn’t free will in the traditional, libertarian sense, it’s still the outcome of necessity, only internalized.
Compatibilism therefore preserves voluntariness, not genuine self-determination, it can explain the distinction between coerced and uncoerced action, but it cannot explain how an agent is ultimately responsible for actions that flow from a motivational structure he didn’t originate. If my character is the product of genetics, neurobiology, developmental history, social conditioning, and environmental influence, all operating within a closed material framework, then the fact that I act “from myself” becomes ambiguous, because the self in question is itself an effect before it is a cause.
This is why compatibilism is totally insufficient for the classical Christian picture of moral responsibility: Christianity does not merely require that human beings act voluntarily; it requires that they be accountable in a deeper sense.
Sin, repentance, guilt, merit, praise, blame, and judgment all presuppose not only that actions issue from the person, but that the person stands behind them as a genuinely responsible source and, if the will is wholly the product of prior material states, then responsibility becomes merely consequential or pragmatic rather than truly desert-based. One may still punish, reward, or reform individuals for social reasons, but the stronger notion that they genuinely deserve blame or praise in the full moral sense becomes enormously harder to justify.
For the same reason, the compatibilist account would also dismantle the spiritual drama at the heart of Christianity: in the classical view, holiness and sin are not merely behavioral outcomes; they are free responses to grace.
But if every human response is fully generated by material causes, then the distinction between rejecting grace and accepting it begins to look less like a genuinely free moral act and more like the inevitable output of antecedent conditions. The language of conversion, culpability, and sanctification may remain, but its metaphysical foundation would be dismantled, only an empty husk would remain.
For all these reasons, a strong demonstration that consciousness is wholly material would dismantle not only the doctrine of the soul but also the very possibility of true free will, and compatibilism would not truly rescue the situation, because it changes the meaning of freedom rather than preserving it, it offers a theory of internally uncoerced action, but not a theory of genuine ultimate agency.
In other words, I think it’s clear why such a discovery would dismantle the entire moral and spiritual architecture of Christianity, on top of dismantling the doctrine of the soul and radically weakening the force and evidentiary value of the apostolic witness. For, as I have argued in a previous post, if every encounter with the dead were shown to be nothing more than the product of internal brain processes rather than a genuine contact with reality, then even the apostolic witness (however much more exalted its claims may be) would be struck at its very foundation, because the decision to believe that the apostles truly saw what they claimed to have seen would then become wholly arbitrary.
This discovery would:
- Destroy the doctrine of the soul.
- Destroy the doctrine of true free will.
- Radically diminish the evidentiary value of the apostolic witness.
If such a discovery were ever established, it would be the equivalent of a RS-28 Sarmat aimed at Christianity.
It is nice that you explain in detail why you think that the origin of consciousness is so important.
What catches my attention is not the belief in an immaterial and eternal soul, it is your interpretation of all the beliefs that you claim to depend on the origin of consciousness. I disagree in some of those points:
Free will is not dependent on the origin of the consciousness.
The truthfulness of apostolic witness is not dependent on the origin of consciousness.
The origin and truthfulness of spiritual experiences is not dependent on the origin of consciousness.
The doctrines of the Roman church or the other denominations should preferably be evaluated by those who belong to these groups. That is why I leave those details for others.
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If humans have no souls there is no room for libertarian free will. That was my argument.
Obviously true. But my claim was much more nuanced if you read what I wrote. I said that we could still choose to believe that it’s true but the choice would be wholly arbitrary, for the reasons I have explained.
True again; but once again, even on this point my claim was more nuanced, especially because nearly every spiritual experience in that case would be proven to have material origins in the brain. We could still choose to believe that some of them are true but we would have basically no way of discerning it. It would all come down to what we desire to believe but we would know that we have absolutely no rational foundation at all.
On the contrary, right now, I believe that there are very valid reasons (even putting Scripture and Doctrine aside) to hold that consciousness has no material origins and also that it’s irrational to believe that every single spiritual experience in the world is only a fabrication of the person or a merely subjective experience generated by the brain.
They are not esoteric teachings, the groups that teach the existence of the soul don’t teach it secretely.
I have read lately about the changes that happened in the Near East (Levant) and Egypt after the times of Alexander the Great. So far, I have read what happened mainly from the perspective of Egypt but the Ptolemaic era and the following Roman rule affected strongly also what happened in the nearby areas, including Israel/Palestine. It has also been interesting to read something about how the worship of Egyptian gods spread within the Mediterranean region during that period and how it may have affected later beliefs within the area.
One interesting detail has been how the beliefs of what a human is and what happens after the death started to change towards what you call Hellenized understanding. Key ‘ingredients’ came from the Greek culture, so the word ‘hellenized’ is justified. Yet, all ‘ingredients’ did not come from the Greek background, so the general picture is more complicated than just something adopted from the Greek culture.
What makes this interesting is that some expressions Jesus used seem to reflect the contemporary ‘hellenized’ beliefs, more than the early Hebrew beliefs from the period of the Torah. It is not evident what this shows, does it prove that the ‘hellenized ideas’ were more correct, or was it a sign of Jesus accommodating his teaching to the understanding (worldview) of the listeners? Or was the background in some other teachings that just appear to be similar than the contemporary ‘hellenized’ understanding?
However we interpret this, your words ‘In the light of New information, it evolved into something closer to reality and much more defensible’ are interesting. The ‘hellenized’ ideas were the best learned understanding of that time but far from what the modern research has revealed about our reality. If we aim closer to reality, to what is more defensible, the ‘hellenized’ ideas are not anymore the best description of the reality. Should we adjust our ‘hellenized understanding’ to what is closer to modern understanding, more defensible?
Most of us have done that in the issue of origin, when we accepted that the universe is very old and that populations have evolved during the very long time periods of the past. It has modified/refined our interpretations of what the Torah tells. How much can we adjust our interpretations about what a human is? Are we bound to what the councils decided 1000+ years ago, or do we have a possibility to conclude something else, based on our better knowledge about the reality and the increased understanding about the interpretation of the old scriptures?
By the way, the modern doctrines about the body and soul in the Roman church seem to be nailed in the councils from the year 1215 onwards. These decisions by the councils were of course based on older teachings and interpretations but there may have been more flexibility in interpretations prior to the nailing of the doctrines.
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Actually, what the earliest Church clearly taught from the start was:
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the human person survives death in some real way;
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the righteous and the wicked remain in different postmortem states; and
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the final Christian hope is not mere survival of the soul, but also the resurrection of the body.
Very early writers then begin to speak explicitly of the soul’s immortality, though some of them deny that the soul is immortal by nature and instead say it endures by God’s will or grace.
For example Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.31.2, he says that “the souls of His disciples… shall go away into the invisible place allotted to them by God, and there remain until the resurrection… then receiving their bodies.” That is already a very clear statement of an intermediate state followed by bodily resurrection. Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103531.htm
Tertullian is equally explicit. In De Anima chapter 58 CHURCH FATHERS: A Treatise on the Soul (Tertullian) he says that souls are kept in Hades until the resurrection and already experience “punishments and consolations” there. That is not annihilationism, and it is not a merely symbolic afterlife; it is a real doctrine of postmortem personal survival.
And these are just two examples but I could make many others.
In Jaroslav Pelikan, The Shape of Death: Life, Death, and Immortality in the Early Fathers (Abingdon, 1961), Pelikan shows that early Christianity did not have one single pat formula, but several recognizable patterns. On pp. 44–45, he notes that Clement can define death as “the separation of the soul from the body” and even “the dissolution of the chains that bind the soul to the body.”
Pelikan is useful because he confirms both sides of the picture: early Christianity was deeply committed to resurrection, yet most fathers also took over quite explicit language of the soul’s continuing life.
In Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (Columbia University Press, 1995; expanded ed. 2017), Bynum shows that the ancient and medieval Church never reduced hope to a disembodied survival of the soul. On p. 26, she notes that the creedal formulations around 200 required assent specifically to resurrectio carnis. On pp. 34–35, she writes that scholars have long seen Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Minucius Felix as deeply “materialist” in their insistence on the palpable fleshly body’s resurrection. And on p. 50, discussing Polycarp material, she notes that the prayer put in Polycarp’s mouth speaks of rising “in body and soul.”
Bynum is helpful because she shows that the Church’s dominant concern was never soul only nor body only, but soul and body together, with the resurrection of the flesh as a central marker of orthodoxy.
In John W. Cooper, “The Current Body-Soul Debate: A Case for Dualistic Holism,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 13.2 (2009), Cooper summarizes the historic consensus very plainly. On pp. 32–33 (the very first page that appears here https://cf.sbts.edu/equip/uploads/2015/10/SBJT-V13-N.2_Cooper.pdf ) he says that throughout history the ecumenical Christian tradition ( Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and most historic Protestant churches ) has affirmed that humans are unities of body and soul, and that disembodied souls exist in an intermediate state between death and resurrection.
And the problem would not simply be the denial of a doctrine the Church has held from the beginning. More seriously, such a denial would drastically weaken the evidentiary force of the apostolic witness, for the reasons I believe I have already explained at considerable length, it would amount to proving beyond any reasonable doubt that the human brain is capable of extremely profound deception without requiring drugs or mental illness, and that every reported encounter with the dead throughout human history is nothing more than a fabrication of the mind rather than something real. This would apply even to cases that today appear impossible to explain, such as the many documented instances in which people reported seeing the souls of deceased persons before they knew those persons had in fact died. In this hypothetical scenario, all of that would have to be dismissed as mere chance and coincidence. And if that were so, the same reasoning could be applied to the apostolic witness: even if the apostles claimed to have seen Jesus raised from the dead, the most rational conclusion within such a framework would be that their brains had deceived them, just as billions of people throughout history have supposedly been deceived. We could still choose (if “choosing” still means something within this hypothetical, but I’ll get to that later) to believe that in that particular case the testimony is true in the strongest sense (objectively, not merely subjectively) but it would be a completely arbitrary decision on our part. Yes, if true, the testimony would still remain true even under that hypothetical. But no, it wouldn’t be reasonable to believe it, it wouldn’t even have one little shred of rational strength. And it would also, for all practical purposes, undermine genuine free will, and with it the doctrines of sin and of humanity’s relationship with God.
As I have argued before, If consciousness were shown to be wholly material in a reductive and causally closed sense, it would be very impossible to reconcile that with genuine free will in the strong, classical sense.
The reason is that true free will doesn’t merely mean that I experience myself as choosing, or that I act according to my desires, it means that I am, in some meaningful sense, a genuine originator of my actions, it means that my choice is not simply the final output of prior causes, but an act for which I’m truly responsible because it proceeds from me as an agent.
Now, if consciousness is wholly material, then every thought, desire, intention, act of deliberation, and apparent decision would arise entirely from physical processes in the brain and body, themselves shaped by prior physical states and environmental inputs. In that case, what I call “my choice” would just be, as I have argued, the endpoint of a causal chain rather than the act of a genuinely self-determining subject. My awareness of choosing would remain, but the true freedom traditionally implied by that awareness would become farcical.
That is the heart of the problem: if my decision is fully explained by prior material causes, then in what sense am I truly the author of it? And even compatibilism wouldn’t solve anything, because it preserves only a thinner notion of voluntariness: It tells me that the action came from within me rather than from a gun to my head, but it doesn’r answer the question: where did the “within me” come from? If my desires themselves are fully produced by causes I did not choose, then saying that I acted according to my desires does not establish genuine self-determination, it merely relocates necessity from the outside to the inside.
If consciousness were wholly material in a reductive sense, then one could still speak of behavior, motivation, and accountability in a social or legal way, but the deeper moral architecture would begin to weaken, and human beings would appear less like true authors of their acts and more like highly sophisticated outcomes of material processes.
Which is why, If consciousness were shown to be wholly material in a reductive and naturalist sense, then genuine free will in the strong, classical sense would be destroyed, because human choices would be fully traceable to prior material conditions rather than to a truly self-determining agent, and while compatibilism might preserve a weaker notion of voluntary action, it wouldn’t be the real freedom required for full moral responsibility (in the theological sense, I’m not talking about human laws, people would still remain legally liable).
That would be literally like comparing an ICBM to a firecracker, if we are talking about the destructive implications of a hypothetical demonstration that consciousness is entirely material in origin and we compare it with evolution.
Evolution merely showed that Genesis cannot be read in a strictly literal sense; it didn’t disprove original sin, nor the fact that at some point a pair of humans were endowed with souls and with the capacity to sin, and to accept or reject the Creator.
The hypothetical scenario we are discussing would be vastly (and vastly is actually very euphemistic) more devastating in its implications. Of course, many people would still “choose” (as if choosing really meant something within this hypothetical) to believe ( I probably would as well) but it would be like clinging to the edge of a cliff with an abyss yawning beneath you. It would resemble a country struck by a few modern ICBMs: yes, some people might “survive,” but in what condition, and how much would actually remain? The same question would apply to Christianity, and indeed to every other spiritual tradition. In fact, some Eastern traditions, such as Hinduism, would be completely destroyed, whereas Christianity (just like Islam and Judaism) could at least still retain belief in the final resurrection, but it’s pointless to minimize the letal consequences that such a discovery would entail.
Thank God, however, that this is only a hypothetical scenario; and the more deeply the subject is investigated, the more it seems that consciousness cannot be reduced to a purely naturalistic account.
This literally cannot be overstated.
I’m not even sure that original sin can be optional at all. Certainly it isn’t (optional) for Catholics, that’s for sure. It’s one of the dogmatically defined teachings (and none of them have ever been contradicted by science or human inquiry; which is another reason why the hypothesis of the discovery of the material origins of the consciousness would have been extremely destructive, it would have been destructive for Catholicism but even for all Christianity for the reasons that I think I have more than eloquently expressed). Even the Orthodox teach it Original Sin - Questions & Answers - Orthodox Church in America even if there are some differences.
As for Protestants and all the churches that emerged from the Reformation, I have deep respect for them as individuals and absolutely regard them as brothers and sisters in Christ. That said, I place far greater trust in the teachings of churches that possess apostolic succession and valid sacraments.
It might be helpful to remember the 3 sects of Judaism:
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Sadducees, sect of High Priests who did not accept angels, and may have imagined resurrection in the flesh for the Righteous (i.e. High Priests?).
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Pharisees (aka Persianized Jews), including some high priest members,
who believed in angels and a physical resurrection. They also endorsed the importance of the Temple. -
The Essenes (including members from the Sadducees and Pharisees),
who rejected the necessity of the Temple, and the belief that the soul travels
to a paradise to wait for a resurrection of all humanity - - probably into bodies of
spirit.
G,Brooks
Yes, there were different schools and communities. Those three were not the only ones, they are just those that we know best. Also the debates between the houses of Shammai and Hillel are well known. Another example is that the teachings in Alexandria (a center of Platonism and hellenized teachings during the Ptolemaic era) seem to differ from what was teached in Jerusalem.
I am not an expert of that period, so I cannot list all the groups but there was a diverse set of teachings. The diversity was strongly restricted after the Jesus movement became a strongly growing ‘threat’ and the Temple was destroyed.
Jesus not only speaks explicitly of the soul in certain passages, but in many others He clearly implies that the human person is not reducible to the body. His teaching repeatedly assumes that there is an inner, spiritual principle in man that survives bodily death and remains accountable before God.
For example, in Matthew 10:28, Jesus draws a direct distinction between body and soul: men may kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul. That statement makes no sense unless the soul is something real and distinct from the body.
In Matthew 16:26 (and its parallels), Jesus says that a man may gain the whole world and yet lose his soul. This implies that the soul is the deepest and most valuable aspect of the person, greater than all material possessions and worldly success.
In Luke 23:43, when Jesus tells the good thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” He implies that personal existence continues immediately after bodily death. The thief’s body would die that very day, yet Jesus speaks of him as still existing in communion with Christ. That strongly implies the survival of the soul.
Likewise, in the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19–31, both figures remain conscious after death: they remember, speak, suffer, and are aware of their condition. Even if one stresses the parabolic form of the passage, Jesus is still presupposing that death does not annihilate the person. The narrative only works because human existence continues beyond the grave.
In Matthew 22:31–32 (with parallels in Mark and Luke), Jesus says that God is “not the God of the dead, but of the living,” referring to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Though their bodies had long since died, and the final resurrection is yet to come, Jesus speaks of them as still living before God. This implies that the person endures beyond bodily death.
The Transfiguration also has force here. In Matthew 17:1–3, Moses and Elijah appear and speak with Jesus. Moses had died centuries earlier, yet he appears as a continuing personal subject. This again implies that death does not exhaust human existence.
So the existence of the soul can be directly derived from Christ’s teaching. His apostles, and then the Early Church, merely continued to teach what had already been taught to them.
It’s not really something that can be relativized or modernized, Jesus clearly spoke of the soul as something that exists and endures.
Three? My understanding is that there were four: Pharisees, Saducees, Essenes, and Zealots.
AI Overview
Yes, the Zealots were a radical political and religious sect of 1st-century Judaism
, often called the “fourth sect” alongside the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. Founded by Judas of Galilee and Zadok the Pharisee, they were intensely devoted to Jewish law and freedom, employing militant, often violent tactics to overthrow Roman rule, which they viewed as idolatrous.
Key Facts About the Zealots:
- Theological Foundation: They shared many beliefs with the Pharisees but insisted that God was the only true ruler of Israel, making submission to Rome a theological violation.
- Militancy: They targeted Roman authorities and Jewish collaborators (including, at times, the elite Sadducees).
- Conflict: They were major actors in the Great Jewish Revolt (66–70 CE) and often engaged in civil strife within Jerusalem, even while under siege, as highlighted in Kiddle Encyclopedia.
- Terminology: They were often called Sicarii (“dagger men”) due to their methods, as noted in Britannica, and the Talmud refers to them as Biryonim, meaning “wild” or “ruffians”.
- Downfall: Their resistance led to a catastrophic conflict with Rome, culminating in the destruction of the Second Temple and the eventual fall of Masada in 73 CE.
While many Pharisees and others also desired freedom from Rome, the Zealots were distinguished by their willingness to use violence to hasten the arrival of what they believed to be a theocratic kingdom.
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The Houses of Shammai and Hillel represent the two sub-sects of the Pharisees.
I believe one allowed for divorce and the other didn’t.
The Essenes had - - according to Hippolytus - - had FOUR (4) major sub-groupings…
with one presumably representing the Jesus or Ebionite faction.
Debates over non-Essene writings stored in the Dead Sea caves usually
fall when the writings are analyzed for Pharisaic vs. Non-Pharisaic content.
The key elements for any division of the Pharisees:
- belief in Angels and bodily resurrection and
- the central importance of the Temple, regardless of what the Sadducees
did with it,
I think it is safe to label the Therapeutae as NON-PHARISAIC.
Sadducees weren’t just High Priests. They were a caste of priests and Levites who served in the Temple complex and drew their living from it. Since the Temple was a huge source of income and directly tied to taxation, Sadducees always collaborated with kings and emperors. Their theology derived from a belief that only the Torah was inspired and binding.
I’ll bypass your personal hobby horse about Persia and Zoroastrianism. The Pharisees as an identifiable sect appeared after the Maccabean revolt as a protest movement against the excesses of Hasmonean kings. (By excesses, I mean the kings named themselves High Priest.) Pharisees viewed Torah as we view the Constitution – the founding document open to interpretation (the “oral law”). The Pharisees accepted the rest of the Hebrew Bible as inspired scripture, hence their belief in an afterlife and the punishment of the wicked/reward of the righteous in the world to come. They also believed in a messiah, according to the Jewish Virtual Library.
The Essenes were separatists. There’s no evidence Jesus had any contact or awareness of them. I’ll pass on the rest.
The Jesus movement tried to distance itself from Judaism as the threat of revolt against Rome grew. The Temple was destroyed, and with it the Sadducees and Essenes. Only the Pharisees survived to found Rabbinic Judaism. But don’t forget the Bar Kokhba Revolt 60 years later. He was the last of the false Messiahs to emerge from the Zealots.
Josephus called the Zealots the “fourth philosophy” of Judaism in the first century, but in my view they were a politicized offshoot of the Pharisees (sorta like Christian Nationalists and evangelicals). Both looked forward to a Messiah. The “fifth philosophy” would be collaborators, whether Herodians or tax collectors. Notably, Jesus included both a Zealot and a collaborator among his apostles. Hmmm.
Upon Herod the Great’s death, Judah ben Hezekiah (Judas of Galilee) led a rebellion in Sepphoris and raided the Roman arsenal. He dispensed the weapons to the population and headed for the hills with his followers, styling himself as a new Davidic king. The Romans burned Sepphoris to the ground and sold the remaining population into slavery as an example. He was the first of seven messianic pretenders listed by Josephus. Ten years later he re-emerged to found the Zealots. Both his sons were crucified for fomenting rebellion in AD 47, and his grandson, Menahem, led a force of Zealots to capture the fortress of Antonia and Herod’s old palace at the outbreak of hostilities with Rome in 66. Menahem donned a purple royal robe and proclaimed himself the Messiah, after which he promptly was assassinated in the temple by a rival faction of rebels. He was the fifth of seven messianic pretenders listed by Josephus.
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