Judas of Galilee or
Judas of Gamala led a violent resistance to
the censusThe "Census of Quirinius" refers to the enrollment of the Roman Provinces of Syria and Iudaea for tax purposes taken in AD 6/7 during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus, when Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was appointed governor of Syria, after the banishment of Herod Archelaus and the imposition...
imposed for
RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
tax purposes by
QuiriniusPublius Sulpicius Quirinius was a Roman aristocrat. His governorship of Syria is one of the chronological anchors for the birth of Jesus.-Life:...
in
Iudaea ProvinceIudaea is the term used by historians to refer to the Roman province that extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Israel...
around AD 6. The revolt was crushed brutally by the Romans. These events are discussed by
JosephusJosephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizen, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70...
in
Jewish Wars and in
Antiquities of the JewsAntiquities of the Jews was a work published by the important Jewish historian Flavius Josephus about the year 93 or 94. Antiquities of the Jews is a history of the Jewish people, written in Greek for Josephus' gentile patrons...
.
In
Antiquities of the Jews Josephus states that Judas, along with
Zadok__notoc__Zadok is a Hebrew name, meaning "righteous", and was the name of several individuals in the Hebrew Bible:*Zadok , the first high priest of the Israelites in Jerusalem after it was conquered by David. Also written as Zadoq ....
the Pharisee, founded the
ZealotsZealotry was originally a political movement in first century Judaism which sought to incite the people of Iudaea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the holy land by force of arms, most notably during the Great Jewish Revolt...
, which he calls the "fourth sect" of first century Judaism (the first three are the
SadduceesThe Sadducees were a group of Jews opposed to the Pharisees , founded in the second century BC. They ceased to exist sometime after the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem in 70AD....
, the
PhariseesThe word Pharisees comes from the Hebrew פרושים perushim from פרוש parush, meaning "set apart" . The Pharisees were, depending on the time, a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews that flourished during the Second Temple Era...
, and the
EssenesThe Essenes were a Jewish religious group that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE that some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests...
).
Judas of Galilee or
Judas of Gamala led a violent resistance to
the censusThe "Census of Quirinius" refers to the enrollment of the Roman Provinces of Syria and Iudaea for tax purposes taken in AD 6/7 during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus, when Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was appointed governor of Syria, after the banishment of Herod Archelaus and the imposition...
imposed for
RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
tax purposes by
QuiriniusPublius Sulpicius Quirinius was a Roman aristocrat. His governorship of Syria is one of the chronological anchors for the birth of Jesus.-Life:...
in
Iudaea ProvinceIudaea is the term used by historians to refer to the Roman province that extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Israel...
around AD 6. The revolt was crushed brutally by the Romans. These events are discussed by
JosephusJosephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizen, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70...
in
Jewish Wars and in
Antiquities of the JewsAntiquities of the Jews was a work published by the important Jewish historian Flavius Josephus about the year 93 or 94. Antiquities of the Jews is a history of the Jewish people, written in Greek for Josephus' gentile patrons...
.
In
Antiquities of the Jews Josephus states that Judas, along with
Zadok__notoc__Zadok is a Hebrew name, meaning "righteous", and was the name of several individuals in the Hebrew Bible:*Zadok , the first high priest of the Israelites in Jerusalem after it was conquered by David. Also written as Zadoq ....
the Pharisee, founded the
ZealotsZealotry was originally a political movement in first century Judaism which sought to incite the people of Iudaea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the holy land by force of arms, most notably during the Great Jewish Revolt...
, which he calls the "fourth sect" of first century Judaism (the first three are the
SadduceesThe Sadducees were a group of Jews opposed to the Pharisees , founded in the second century BC. They ceased to exist sometime after the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem in 70AD....
, the
PhariseesThe word Pharisees comes from the Hebrew פרושים perushim from פרוש parush, meaning "set apart" . The Pharisees were, depending on the time, a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews that flourished during the Second Temple Era...
, and the
EssenesThe Essenes were a Jewish religious group that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE that some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests...
). Josephus blames the Zealots, a group of
theocraticalTheocracy is a form of government in which a god or deity is recognized as the state's supreme civil ruler, or in a higher sense, a form of government in which a state is governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. In Common Greek, “theocracy” means a...
-
nationalistsNationalism is an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation...
who preached that
GodIn Judaism, the name of God is more than a distinguishing title. It represents the Jewish conception of the divine nature, and of the relation of God to the Jewish people...
alone was the ruler of
IsraelThe Land of Israel is, according to the Hebrew Bible, the region which was promised by their God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This land forms part of the Abrahamic, Jacob and Israel covenants...
and later urged that no taxes should be paid to Rome, for the Great Jewish Revolt and for the destruction of
Herod's TempleHerod's Temple in Jerusalem was a massive expansion of the Temple Mount platform and major expansion of the Jewish Temple by King Herod the Great around 19 BCE...
.
Josephus does not relate the death of Judas, although he does report that Judas' sons James and Simon were executed by procurator
Tiberius Julius AlexanderTiberius Julius Alexander was an equestrian governor and general in the Roman Empire. Born into a wealthy Jewish family of Alexandria but abandoning or neglecting the Jewish religion, he rose to become procurator of Judea under Claudius...
in about 46 AD. He also reports that
MenahemMenahem, was a king of the Kingdom of Israel. He was the son of Gadi, and the founder of the dynasty known as the House of Gadi or House of Menahem....
, one of the early leaders of the Jewish Revolt in AD 66, was Judas' son, but most scholars doubt this. Menahem may have been Judas' grandson, however. Menahem's cousin, Eleazar ben Ya'ir, then escaped to the fortress of
MasadaMasada is the name for a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel on top of an isolated rock plateau, or large mesa, on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea...
where he became a leader of the last defenders against the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
.
Judas is mentioned in the New Testament Book of
Acts of the ApostlesThe Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament. It is commonly referred to as Acts and outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
. The author has
GamalielGamaliel the Elder , or Rabbi Gamaliel I, was a leading authority in the Sanhedrin in the mid first century. He was the grandson of the great Jewish teacher Hillel the Elder, and died twenty years before the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem...
, a member of the
SanhedrinThe Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Land of Israel.The Talmud states:GEMARA. Whence is this derived? — R...
, refer to him as an example of a
failed Messianic leaderThis article presents an overview of various historically significant Jewish Messiah claimants. For general information see Jewish Messiah and also see the various main articles referenced below.-List of Jewish messiah claimants:*Judas of Galilee This article presents an overview of various...
. This is evidently an error, since it describes the revolt of
TheudasTheudas was a Jewish rebel of the 1st Century AD. His name, if a Greek compound, may mean "gift of God", although other scholars believe its etymology is Semitic and might mean “flowing with water”...
, which would not actually take place for another ten years, as happening
before that of Judas.
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