Was Jesus a violent nationalistic revolutionary zealot?

To answer this question, I will be making two main points. 1) Within just a few years of the crucifixion of Jesus, a man called Paul joined the Jesus movement and made himself known to Peter and John, and James, and this Paul was sure that he had joined a movement of non-violence. For that reason, it is highly unlikely that it had recently been a violent movement. 2) Secondly, if you are going to develop a movement of non-violence, the last person you're going to look back on as your founder and teacher would be a violent person.


First, I am going straight to the earliest first-hand eyewitness information that tells us what the first Christians thought about this. In the 30s of the first century, did they believe Jesus was a violent nationalistic revolutionary zealot?


The eyewitness is of course Paul, and the clue is right here in his own words:

“you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. [Paul then describes his conversion to following jesus.]  Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas [Peter] and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.” (Galatians 1:13-14; 18-19 - emphasis added)

The tell-tale clue here is in a word Paul uses: it’s “Judaism”. But we mustn’t misunderstand what he means, or we will miss the point. So the term “Judaism” (in Greek, IOUDAISMOS) needs a closer look.

Jewish scholar Daniel Boyarin has pinned down the fact that in its earliest use, IOUDAISMOS contrasts the ways of the people (or the state) of Judea with the ways of the foreigners, the HELLENISMOS. It was a political urge for Israel to be free of Gentile control, free to pursue a manifesto for Israel’s people, land and temple. That was Paul’s agenda.

It was not particularly a term by which a religion was named in the first century. "Judaism" was not the ordinary word for the religion of the Israelites. Today, some textbook references to Judaism of the first and second century give a misleading impression of a Jewish religion that can be placed alongside Christianity as if the two had split into two separate "religions" by then, but that is just anachronistic.[i]


On the contrary, in Maccabees (the earliest known use of the word “Judaism”) IOUDAISMOS is not a religion per se; but rather that "Judaism" is a broader agenda to which Israelites may, or may not, be loyal.


So, 2 Maccabees 8:1-5 characterises “Judaism” as a reaction to the profaning of the temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, the oppression of the people and blasphemies against God’s name.

Judaism was something of which insurrectionists could be convicted; so 2 Maccabees 14:38 says, ‘some born Jews abandoned “Judaism,” others fought for it...’[ii]

When Paul says that he was advancing in “Judaism” (Galatians 1:13-14), this is the background we should have in mind. These are the only two New Testament appearances of IOUDAISMOS. Before his conversion, his nationalism drove him to violence. That was when he persecuted the church, because he believed that some in the church were undermining Judaism’s agenda for Israel’s people, land and temple. Then, in his change of heart and going over to the church, Paul wasn’t joining the side of violent nationalism, he was leaving it.

Paul’s conversion meant for him giving up the nationalistic agenda of his “Judaism”. That was his “former life”, and for him the antithesis of following Jesus. As he put it himself, he was going over to the faith of the people he had persecuted. For him, going over to Peter's and James' side meant giving up his violent nationalist agenda; and meeting Peter and James three years later kept him on his new course, rather than rekindling his nationalism. His was a choice between Jesus or violent nationalism, and that was the way that he and the church leaders of the 30s saw it. Paul’s conversion leaves him in no doubt that his violent zeal for a nationalist agenda is over.

This all happened in the 30s of the first century, and that is important for getting a glimpse of the Jesus they believed in. This is so close to the time when Jesus was supposed to have lived that it has this extra significance: the short time makes most likely that the views of Peter and James would not have changed significantly from the views they believed Jesus held to only a handful of years before.

So one thing we learn from Paul’s writings is that right in the foundational stages of the faith, Jesus’ followers in the 30s were ideologically distant from the zealot cause. And that makes it likely that Jesus too was distant from the zealot cause.


It's worth adding a couple of points about content in the gospels: Jesus has one named zealot among his disciples ('Simon the Zealot') but the function of the gospel narratives is to repeatedly show how all kinds of people, such as Simon, are en masse de-converted away from their own values to adopt the values of Jesus. And even in the one outbreak of violence by a disciple, where Peter cuts off a man's ear, this is actually a conflict between fellow Jews - it's not an attack on a Roman but on a Jew who represents the temple elite. It's not insurrection against Rome. It doesn't even amount to a civil war among Jews. But time and time again we see the gospels portray Jesus crying out in frustration against fellow Jews but never once against a Roman.


Even the story of Peter cutting off a man's ear is told to show Jesus stopping the violence. (It's important to remember that the meaning of a text comes from its function, not just from its content.) In Israel, a country in which some groups felt a simmering resentment against the Roman occupiers, this story of Jesus was ideal for telling again and again in every decade to show that there is another way forward apart from violence.

The name of Jesus was distant from the violent revolutionary nationalism of zealots and their like. Paul's renouncing violent nationalism and joining the persecuted church meant he was doing what he believed was in line with the views of Jesus.

To Paul’s mind, his new interest in following Jesus was incompatible with his former life as a zealous nationalist. Joining Peter/James’ side entailed leaving behind that life. The church of the 30s (in which Peter and James were leaders) were victims of the violence of this nationalistic agenda, on the receiving end of the violence of Paul until his conversion.

Paul’s conversion entailed him switching sides away from the nationalists’ side to the church’s side: from the side of the violent to the side of the victims of violence. If Paul thought joining the church meant joining the side of violent revolutionaries, why is there not even the slightest hint in his letters of him knowing it? In light of the very earliest evidence, the idea that the church was a movement of violent revolutionaries is a non-starter.


And so, in some of his last known words, Paul shows how he has left his past behind him, writing these words:




'Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.'

(from Romans 12:14-21)

And if you turn to the gospels, you will find words like those quoted from the mouth of Jesus. Because that is the side that Paul had gone over to.

Of course, you can go to the gospels and get the same result as supplied through this blog. But what I've been doing in this series of blogs is establishing what we can find out about Jesus and the earliest Christians just from Paul's letters. It is turning out to be quite a lot. 

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[i] Daniel Boyarin, “Semantic Differences; or “Judaism”/”Christianity”,” in The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 65-85.

[ii] Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow of the Temple (Illinois: IVP Academic, 2002), 39-40. See also N.T. Wright, What St Paul Really Said (Oxford: Lion, 1997) 26-27.

So when did St Paul persecute the church? (And when did Jesus die?)

Simple question. St Paul said he persecuted the church before his own conversion happened. This was in the first century AD, but when? In the 30s? In the 40s? Later?


On purpose, I’m going to answer with one hand tied behind my back. What I mean is this: I’m not going to use any information in the Book of Acts. None at all. Zilch. Zero. Big fat zero.


I’m going to get my dating purely from first-hand autobiographical eyewitness data from someone who was there, and in his own words, there when Paul was persecuting the church. That person, is of course, Paul himself, the persecutor.


As usual in my blogs, I’m going to rely only on letters that scholars agree were written by Paul himself. I mean secular scholars, Jewish scholars and Christian scholars. And even then, I’m only going to use a few of those authentic letters: Galatians, Corinthians and Romans. That is all I’m giving myself to determine when Paul was persecuting church. (And for good measure, I'll have a go at when Jesus died too.) How will I do?


An independent yardstick


I'll be mentioning a few dates. To measure all the dates against some fixed point in time, I am going to use only two yardsticks, independent yardsticks:

1) the Jewish War with Rome. The war began in 66AD and ended in 70AD. Those are dates that historians on all sides agree on. That is: the Judean war began in 66AD; and Jerusalem was destroyed in 70AD. The Romans destroyed the city and the Temple. The destruction was so great that the rabbis upped sticks and left and settled in Galilee. The destruction was so utter that according to archaeologists not even burials happened at Jerusalem afterwards. The city was wrecked, its people slaughtered, others dispersed.

2) King Aretas IV died in 40/41AD. Again, historians are agreed on that.

On the first point, in some of Paul's autobiographical letters, he describes trips he’s made to Jerusalem after he stopped persecuting the church, or trips that he was planning to make. The descriptions of these trips leave us in no doubt that they are before 70AD. It's not as if he says, "I met Peter and we were in a war zone!" Only before 70AD were such trips as he describes possible. Indeed, in 1 Corinthians, Paul clearly knows that the temple is still standing, which means he cannot have written this any later than 70AD: 

• 'Don't you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar?” (1 Corinthians 9:13)

Also, the letters’ contents fit comfortably in the pre-70AD period. That is, Paul’s operations fit in the world of Jews and Romans and other Gentiles of that period. Paul seems to know nothing about the post-70AD world in which the Jewish nation had been devastated by the war with Rome and Jewish-Roman tensions were more problematic – he belongs to the earlier period.

Each time he goes on a trip Paul has a reason for going. He tells us in his own words the reason for his trips and we start to get an idea of how far apart in time they were from each other. Here are his mentions of the first two:

• “I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it... [Paul then describes being converted to following Jesus]... I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days... Later I went to Syria and Cilicia.”   (Galatians 1:13-18)

• “Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem ...set before them the gospel I preach among the gentiles. But I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain.”   (Galatians 2:1-2 – So Paul went to get his preaching vetted and approved by the leaders of the Jerusalem church.)

So that was two visits, many years apart, which happened after his conversion. Paul planned a third visit to Jerusalem towards the end of his ministry career:

• “Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there. For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem.” (Romans: 15:25-26 – Paul says he had been collecting money from his churches for some years to take to Jerusalem, a gift to the Jerusalem church.)

So, there we have three visits and we have some numbers (the mentions of three years and fourteen years). It’s time to get the calculator out.



We can start from 70AD - when Jerusalem got destroyed - and work backwards. But realistically, it makes more sense to start from 66AD and work backwards, because in 66AD the Judean war began. The visits above don’t give any impression at all that Paul was making his trips during the war.

So counting the years backwards with our numbers: Paul says there were 14 years between two of his visits to Jerusalem. So even if the second visit (Galatians 2:1-2) was as late as 66AD, then that means Paul’s first visit was at least 14 years before 66AD: so that’s 52AD for the first visit at the latest. (See footnote 2 for another way of counting.) Paul's first-hand account says that by the time of that first visit, Paul had already been converted and stopped persecuting the church: that is, by 52AD at the latest.

So 52AD is, to begin with, a terminus ante quem. (Terminus ante quem is the phrase historians use to say that that this is the latest possible date by which something had happened.) So Paul had stopped persecuting the church by 52AD and converted to following Jesus by then.



But actually, allowing for time-consuming things that happened after Paul wrote to the Galatians means that we should push the overall dating of that letter earlier than 66AD, and the whole timeframe moves with it. That’s because that second visit was only Paul’s middle visit to Jerusalem after his conversion. I haven’t fitted in the third visit he planned after he wrote Galatians (Romans 15:25-26).



So there are things that we need to fit in between Paul’s second and third visits to Jerusalem, and these probably took some years. That is, after Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem:

 


• he goes to Antioch and has a row with Peter there (Gal 2:11-14)


• he also visits some of his churches around the Mediterranean and collects money to take back to Jerusalem as a gift on his next visit (Romans 15:25-26; 2 Cor 8:1-7)

So, we know the second visit is even earlier than 66AD, otherwise there is no room to fit in Paul planning his third visit before 66AD.



Now, we can push back the time when Paul stopped persecuting the church a bit further still, because there are three years and a bit more to fit in, as Paul said:

• “I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days... Later I went to Syria and Cilicia... Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem...”

(As mentioned, there is an alternative way of counting the 14 years, which I will come to.) 



So far, the data gives us this TIMELINE, starting from earlier events:

 


• Paul stops persecuting the church



• time in Arabia (he doesn’t say how long)



• time in Damascus - three years



• first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (before 52AD)



• time in Syria and Cilicia (this place was along the south coast of Asia Minor – its capital was Tarsus) and places where he did missionary work [i] - fourteen years



• second visit to Jerusalem (before 66AD)



• time doing missionary work



• Paul collects money from his churches around the Mediterranean



• Paul plans a third visit to Jerusalem (no later than 66AD)



• 66AD the war in Judea starts

So, the earlier three years mean we can put a date on when Paul stopped persecuting the church, so, this is the TIMELINE:

 


• Paul stops persecuting the church - before 49AD [ii]



• time in Arabia (he doesn’t say how long)



• time in Damascus - three years



• first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (before 52AD)



• time in Syria and Cilicia and places where he did missionary work - fourteen years



• second visit to Jerusalem (before 66AD)



• plans for third visit (no later than 66AD)



• 66AD the war in Judea starts

Now realistically, there’s no need to be pushing every single event, including the third visit to Jerusalem, till the last possible moment up to 66AD – that’s just our terminus ante quem. And once we’ve allowed time between the second and third visits to Jerusalem as well, and allowing time for Arabia after his conversion, then it means that the time when Paul was persecuting the church is pushed further back into the 40s.


All our data from Paul so far is from Galatians and Romans, and Corinthians. Now let’s get more datable evidence from Corinthians:

• “In Damascus the ethnarch (the governor) [iii] under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me.” (2 Cor 11:32)

This is where our next independent yardstick comes in: 40/41AD. That's when King Aretas IV, who ruled the Nabateans from 9BC, died. So 41AD is the terminus ante quem. By then, Paul was getting into these scrapes while following Jesus. [iv]


That means, so far, that Paul’s conversion had happened by 41AD at the latest. That means Paul had stopped persecuting the church by 41AD at the latest. That means we have pulled the last possible date when Paul stopped persecuting the church 8 years, from 49AD to 41AD. This is what that does to our timeline:

• Paul stops persecuting the church – by 41AD



• time in Arabia (he doesn’t say how long)



• time between Arabia and his first visit - three years



• first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (by 44AD at the latest)



• time in Syria and Cilicia and places where he did missionary work - fourteen years pass (or 11 years if you prefer to include the first 3 years within the 14 years - see footnote 2 - this is the alternative way of counting that I told you about)



• second visit to Jerusalem - by 58AD (or 55AD if you prefer to include the first 3 years within the 14 years)



• plans for third visit (no later than 66AD)



• 66AD the war in Judea starts

The answer

To answer the question that started this blog: When did Paul stop persecuting the church? The answer is that Paul had stopped persecuting the church by the 40s, and probably some time earlier. 

We can say this because Paul was there - his first hand eyewitness writings give us dates; and we have independent yardsticks - we know when Jerusalem was destroyed, etc.; so we can compare one with the other in the way. With autobiographical first-hand eyewitness evidence like this, and independent historical markers like this, you can actually reconstruct a lot of early church history.

So putting it all together at last, our overall TIMELINE is as follows:
 

• Paul persecutes the church (before 41AD, pushing back into the 30s realistically)


• Paul is converted to following Jesus


• Paul stops persecuting the church


• time in Arabia (Paul doesn’t say how long)


• Paul avoids arrest in Damascus (by 41AD at the very latest)


• Aretas IV dies (41AD)


• Paul's time in Damascus - three years


• first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (by 44AD at the latest)


• time in Syria and Cilicia and places where he did missionary work - fourteen years


• second visit to Jerusalem (by 58AD or 55AD)


• he goes to Antioch and has a row with Peter there (Gal 2:11-14)


• sometime later, Paul writes his letter to the Galatians, in which he writes about that time period (3 years and 14 years) and describes his row with Peter


• time doing missionary work


• he visits some of his churches around the Mediterranean and collects money to take back to Jerusalem as a gift on his next visit (Romans 15:25-26; 2 Cor 8:1-7)


• Paul plans a third visit to Jerusalem


• Paul writes Romans and 2 Corinthians in which he talks about his plans for his next visit to Jerusalem (therefore letters written no later than 66AD)


• 66AD the war in Judea starts


• 70AD the destruction of Jerusalem 

This is useful stuff, as we want to know as much as possible about the people Paul persecuted in the 30s for their faith, and about what they knew about Jesus before Paul got interested in following Jesus. This dating gives us extra confidence about talking about the church Paul persecuted in the 30s.


If you wanted to hone the dates further by looking at data from other sources, such as the Book of Acts, you can of course do that as another exercise.


Footnote: a date for Jesus’ death


Paul gives the Corinthians a bit more information. He tells us us that Jesus had brothers who had wives (1 Corinthians 9:5). As Paul was writing in the 50s, and Jesus' brothers were adults with wives and clearly still alive in the 50s, this means Jesus' life can be dated to the first half of the first century. (And we see that Paul was an adult persecuting the church in the 30s, so this makes Paul and Jesus contemporaries of the first half of the century.) We can confirm this because writing in the 50s of the first century - dated according to secular scholars - Paul refers to himself as an "old man" (Philemon v.9) which, going by the writings of his Jewish contemporaries, means that Paul was in his fifties at the time of his writing and therefore he was born around the start of that century: thus a contemporary of Jesus.

Paul also tells the Corinthians that he understands that the following things had happened.


Information from Paul as a secondary source:

 

• Jesus was betrayed and crucified, etc. (1 Cor 11:23, 15:3-7)

Information from Paul as a primary source:

• followers of Jesus carried on following Jesus, now as churches (Gal 1:13, 22-23)



• other people were "apostles" before he was, and he names Peter and James (Gal 1:17)



• other people were, as he says, "in Christ" before he was, and he names Andronicus and Junia (Romans 16:7)



• Paul persecuted the church (1 Cor 15:9, Gal 1:13)



• Paul was converted to following Jesus



• Paul stopped persecuting the church (Gal 1:15-16)



• Paul went to Arabia (Gal 1:17)



• Paul went to Damascus (Gal 1:17)



• Paul avoids arrest in Damascus (by 41AD at the very latest)

Taking all this into account, there is a fair bit to squeeze in, so this pushes the crucifixion of Jesus back into the 30s.


And so, in this exercise all of these results have been calculated based on independent historians' agreed dates (66-70AD and 41AD) and a few autobiographical letters. So putting it all together again with Jesus included, our overall TIMELINE is as follows: 

 


• by the 30s at the latest, Jesus was betrayed and crucified, etc.



• followers of Jesus carry on following Jesus, now as churches



• Paul persecutes the church (before 41AD)



• Paul is converted to following Jesus



• Paul stops persecuting the church



• time in Arabia (Paul doesn’t say how long)



• Paul avoids arrest in Damascus (by 41AD at the very latest)



• Aretas IV dies (41AD)



• Paul's time in Damascus - three years



• first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (by 44AD at the latest)



• time in Syria and Cilicia and places where he did missionary work - fourteen years



• second visit to Jerusalem (by 58AD or 55AD)



• he goes to Antioch and has a row with Peter there (Gal 2:11-14)



• sometime later, Paul writes his letter to the Galatians



• time doing missionary work



• he visits some of his churches around the Mediterranean and collects money to take back to Jerusalem as a gift on his next visit (Romans 15:25-26; 2 Cor 8:1-7)



• Paul plans a third visit to Jerusalem



• Paul writes Romans and 2 Corinthians (no later than 66AD)



• 66AD the war in Judea starts



• 70AD the destruction of Jerusalem

So that's the timeline. 


Of course, if you want to hone the dates more by using data from other sources, such as the gospels, Acts, Tacitus, etc, you are free to do so! This was just an exercise in getting dates from Paul’s letters to Galatia, Rome and Corinth.




The thing is, historians when putting dates on Paul's story usually do it by comparing it with the Book of Acts. I wanted to do something different, and work backwards from 70AD, a date that is set in stone, so to speak. Q.E.D.


Footnote

From Paul's autobiographical data, the death of Jesus falls into the first half of the first century. It cannot reasonably found to be later, and is actually a good deal earlier. This puts paid to fringe theories such as that of film-maker Lena Einhorn who controversially speculated that Jesus was actually active (as a violent rebel!) in the second half of the first century, and died round about 50-52AD, and that the gospels sneakily shift that date back in time some 15-20 years. Secular scholars have little to no interest in such speculation because it can't reasonably be tied into the dating that Paul's first-hand accounts give us. Indeed, Einhorn's speculation carries much less weight as it is not based on anything first-hand, but is based on her idea that names such as John the Baptist and Jesus were actually code-names for completely different people of the 40s and 50s of the century whose stories she finds in the works of Josephus. If you have not heard of Einhorn's theory, that is why.

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[i] Places where Paul says he did missionary work include Corinth (1 Cor 15:3), Philippi (Philippians 4:9), Thessalonica (1 Thess 2:13), Galatia (Galatians 1:6, 11).

[ii] Many historians would try to fit the three years into the fourteen years, which would mean, so far in this argument, that the first visit to Jerusalem had happened by 52 rather than 49AD as a terminus ante quem. See Paul Barnett, The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years, page 25-26. Therefore, in this blog I’ve offered both alternative dates where appropriate.


[iii] 41AD: aside from the fact that Paul sees himself as a believer by this time – this is autobiographical and there’s no reason to doubt that Paul knew when he was a believer - there is also an interesting historical puzzle. Aretas IV holding sway, and having an “ethnarch” under him, is attested only by Paul. However, he is our earliest source and our only primary source. Josephus, a later source and a secondary source, is unaware of Aretas IV holding sway there. (As for their being an 'ethnarch' some see an analogous situation in Alexandria in Josephus Ant. Book 14: 7.2, but there are problems with that, as demonstrated by DA Campbell.) DA Campbell suggests Aretas briefly took advantage of political turmoil and weakness in the region and held sway for a year or so, which would solve the problems associated with Paul's understanding of the politics. See Barnett: Paul: Missionary of Jesus, page 82; and Barnett: The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years, page 62; and DA Campbell: “An anchor for Pauline Chronology: Paul’s Flight from ‘The Ethnarch of King Aretas’ (2 Corinthians 11:32-33),” (JBL. 121.2 (2002), 279-302.

[iv] DA Cambell argues for 36/37 being the time when Paul avoided arrest in Damascus - on the basis that this is the window when Aretas IV could plausibly have seized temporary control of Damascus - and on that basis Campbell shifts all the dates another four years. If so, that would mean Paul had ceased to persecute the church by 36/37AD. On a final note, why was Paul under threat in Damascus? Firstly, relations between Jews and Nabateans were bitter because in the 20s Antipas divorced King Aretas’ daughter and remarried Herodias. Secondly, preaching a Jewish messiah to Nabateans was dangerous enough and may have stirred up trouble in the wider region. Thirdly, some say Paul was of the Herodian family which wouldn't have gone down well given that King Aretas' daughter had been spurned in favour of Herodias.