We are on solid ground in understanding that Jesus was referring solely to the generation of Jews who were alive during the 40 years between his ministry and the destruction of Jerusalem. However, if this is correct, then Jesus and Josephus were referring to the same group as the “wicked generation.” Notice in the following passages how similar Jesus’ and Josephus’ understanding was regarding “demons,” the “wicked generation,” and the Sicarii.
From Josephus:
… had the Romans made any longer delay in coming against these villains, the city would either have been swallowed up by the ground opening upon them, or been overflowed by water, or else been destroyed by such thunder as the country of Sodom perished by, for it had brought forth a generation of men much more atheistical than were those that suffered such.68
… And truly so it happened, that though the slayers left off at the evening, yet did the fire greatly prevail in the night; and as all was burning, came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus [Elul] upon Jerusalem,
a city that had been liable to so many miseries during this siege, that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from its first foundation, it would certainly have been the envy of the world. Nor did it on any other account so much deserve these sore misfortunes, as by producing such a generation of men as were the occasions of this its overthrow.69
From the New Testament:
“Wicked and faithless generation!” He replied, “They clamor for a sign, but none shall be given to them except the sign of the Prophet Jonah.”
Matt. 12:39
Then he goes and brings back with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they come in and dwell there; and in the end that man’s condition becomes worse than it was at first. So will it be also with the present wicked generation.
Matt. 12:45
“O unbelieving and perverse generation!” replied Jesus; “How long shall I be with you? How long shall I endure you?”
Matt. 17:16
I tell you in solemn truth that all these things will come upon the present generation.
Matt. 23:36
I tell you in solemn truth that the present generation will certainly not pass away without all these things having first taken place.
Matt. 24:34
Somehow, the three-way connection between the “wicked generation,” Jesus’ “demons,” and Josephus’ “Sicarii” has not attracted much attention from scholars. For example, the Hebrew scholar Joseph Klausner completely missed the connection. He wrote:
At that time even educated people and those who had imbibed of the Greek culture such as Josephus, [thought of] such nerve cases and cases of insanity as cases of “possession” by some devil or evil or unclean spirit, and believed in cures and that certain men could perform miracles.70
In fact, Josephus did not believe that demons were “nerve cases” and gave a precise definition as to what they were. He stated that demons were the spirits of the wicked.
Demons … are no other than the spirits of the wicked.71
This definition indicates that Josephus saw the Sicarii as “demons,” in that he constantly describes the rebels as “wicked.” Josephus also links the Sicarii with “demons” in another way. He describes the Sicarii as moving “with a demoniacal fury”72 as they went to kill their families at the end of the siege of Masada. Like Jesus, Josephus makes it clear who the “wicked” are. They are the generation of Jews that rebelled against Rome.
That neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world.73
Thus, Jesus and Josephus shared a narrow understanding and expressed it with the same vocabulary: that the generation of Jews who lived between 33 C.E. and 73 C.E. were “wicked” because they had been “infected” by a demonic spirit. This shared understanding is suspicious. Jesus could only view the “wickedness” of this generation by looking into the future, and yet he not only held the same opinion of the generation as Josephus, he used the same words in describing it.
Returning to the version of the story of the demoniac of Gadara found in Matthew, where Jesus meets two demons, in Wars of the Jews we learn that there were two “tyrants” or leaders of the Jewish rebellion, John, described above, and a Simon. Since my analysis suggests that the New Testament is satirizing John in the version that describes a single demon of Gadara, it seemed logical to ask whether the version describing two demoniacs was satirizing both leaders of the Jewish rebellion, John and Simon.
Experimenting with this premise I noticed that at the conclusion of the siege of Jerusalem in Wars of the Jews, Simon and John both take refuge in subterranean caverns beneath Jerusalem. Eventually they are forced by starvation to come out of these “tombs” and surrender to the Romans. This event struck me as a parallel to the description of the demon-possessed men “coming out of the tombs” in the New Testament.
The passage in Wars of the Jews that describes these caverns confirms that they are indeed “tombs.”
… the Romans slew some of them, some they carried captives, and others they made a search for underground, and when they found where they were, they broke up the ground and slew all they met with.
There were also found slain there above two thousand persons, partly by their own hands, and partly by one another, but chiefly destroyed by the famine;
but then the ill savor of the dead bodies was most offensive to those that lighted upon them, insomuch that some were obliged to get away immediately … 74
As I have mentioned, the demon-possessed man at Gadara is described as “cutting himself with stones.”75 Cutting oneself with “stones” is, of course, unusual—a stone is not a tool someone would normally use to cut with. What is the author of this passage actually referring to? I realized that if the demoniacs of Gadara are intended to satirize the rebel leaders, then there was a satiric answer to this question.
The phrase in the New Testament where the demoniac is “in the tombs … cutting himself with stones” shares a darkly humorous relationship with the passage in Wars of the Jews that describes the “tombs” that John and Simon take refuge in. The scornful joke comes from the unanswered question in Mark 5:5 – this question being, what does one call someone who cuts himself with stones? In a passage in Wars of the Jews relating to the rebel leader’s hiding in the “tombs,” one can see an ironic answer. Someone who cuts himself with stones is “stone-cut,” and can therefore mockingly be called a “stone-cutter.”
This Simon, during the siege of Jerusalem, was in the upper city; but when the Roman army was gotten within the walls, and were laying the city waste, he then took the most faithful of his friends with him, and among them some that were stonecutters, with those iron tools which belonged to their occupation.76
The version of the Gadara encounter in Matthew does not describe the fate of either of its two demon-possessed men. However, if the demoniacs were spoofs of the leaders of the Jewish rebellion, then the version in Mark, which describes only one possessed man, must tell the fate of John.
I reached this conclusion because the passage concludes with the statement “Him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind … and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him.”77
If the New Testament was lampooning Simon and John, the leaders of the Jewish rebellion, then the individual who was restored to his “right mind” and who went to Decapolis could only have been John. This is because Josephus records that, after being captured, John was given life imprisonment while Simon was taken to Rome and executed. Following this logic, it could only have been John, then, who “began to publish in Decapolis.”
So my musings raised the question of whether John the Zealot, leader of the Jewish rebellion, had assisted the Romans in creating Christian literature while he was imprisoned in Decapolis. And further, I wondered exactly what literature this individual could
have helped the Romans create? The only known Christian literature from this era is the New Testament itself. There was, of course, someone named “John” who wrote a Gospel.
While the premise, that the Apostle John was a lampoon of the John who was the leader of the rebellion, was based at this point in my analysis as much on imagination as evidence, it was consistent with the style of dark humor I felt was in play within the passages analyzed previously. Of course, if the Apostle John is a lampoon of the rebel John, then it would follow that the Apostle Simon is also a lampoon of the other rebel leader, Simon.
Since my analysis of the New Testament’s Gadara passages suggest that the Sicarii were lampooned as demons in the New Testament, I first attempted to determine if there were other New Testament passages concerning demons that might support the proposition regarding the relationship between Josephus’ messianic rebel leaders John and Simon, and the two Apostles. During this search I noticed the following passage from the Gospel of John, which states that the Apostle Judas was the “son of Simon the Iscariot.”
“Did not I choose you—the Twelve?” said Jesus, “and even of you one is a devil.”
He alluded to Judas, the son of Simon the Iscariot. For he it was who, though one of the Twelve, was afterwards to betray Him.
John 6:71–72
Scholars have commented on the possibility that “Iscariot,” the last name of Judas, is somehow related to “Sicarii,” the word Josephus uses to describe the messianic rebels. As Robert Eisenman notes, the only difference between the two Greek words is the switching of the iota, or “I,” with the sigma, or “s.” I concur, and will show below that it is simply one of the many puns that the author(s) of Josephus and the New Testament use in challenging the reader to discover that the two works describe the same characters.
I determined that the following passage from the Gospel of Matthew could be read as a satire on John, the leader of the rebellion, as well as on the “wicked generation.” Notice that “John” is accused of having a demon because he is not eating and drinking, which certainly can be likened to the rebel John’s situation in the subterranean caverns.
John is shown as a mirror opposite of the “Son of Man,” who is eating and drinking and is “the friend of tax gatherers,” and who will “upbraid towns” “because they had not repented”—this description of Jesus having a clear parallel in Titus’ activities in Judea. Therefore, if the passage has the satirical meaning I suspected, then the “John” described within the passage is meant to be understood as John, the leader of the rebellion, and Jesus’ prophecy is actually envisioning Titus’ campaign through Judea.
“But to what shall I compare the present generation? It is like children sitting in the open places, who call to their playmates.
“ ‘We have played the flute to you,’ they say, ‘and you have not danced: we have sung dirges, and you have not beaten your breasts.’
“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’
“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they exclaim, ‘See this man!—given to gluttony and tippling, and a friend of tax-gatherers and notorious sinners!’ And yet Wisdom is vindicated by her actions.”
Then began He to upbraid the towns where most of His mighty works had been done—because they had not repented.
Matt. 11:16–20
My analysis of the New Testament story of the demons of Gadara suggests that, the “subterranean caverns” the Jewish rebels fled into at the end of the siege of Jerusalem, were satirized as “tombs” within the New Testament. The following passage from the Gospel of John appeared to me to be using this theme. However, notice that if this interpretation is correct, then in the passage Jesus is actually comparing himself to Titus, in that Titus is the individual sent by “god,” that is, his father Vespasian, to hand out “life” – or “judgment” – to the Jews hidden in “tombs,” that is, the caverns beneath Jerusalem.
This interpretation indicates a different origin for the Christian concept of “resurrection” than that traditionally held. It is not based on the Pharisaic belief that God will return the dead to life, but rather is a satire of the “raising” of the dead by Titus at the end of the siege. In other words, the Gospels’ concept of “resurrection” refers to those Jews found “buried” within the “tombs” under Jerusalem at the end of the siege. If this is correct, it is another example of the theme of Jesus seemingly speaking symbolically, but Josephus’ history showing an ironically literal meaning to his words.
“For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself,
“and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
“and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.
“I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
John 5:26–30
While these interpretations of the passages above are logical, they do not, in and of themselves, provide direct support for the contention that the Apostles John and Simon were satires of the leaders of the Jewish rebellion. Further analysis of the New Testament produced more examples of this kind, but nothing that provided the clarity I sought. Finally, I realized what had been staring me in the face the entire time. There is a passage within the New Testament that provides extraordinary support for the premise that the Apostles Simon and John were lampoons of the Jewish rebel leaders Simon and John.
The Gospel of John concludes with a discussion between Simon (Peter) and Jesus. Jesus foresees that Simon will be bound and carried “where you do not wish to go.” Jesus also tells Simon that he will have a martyr’s death, “to glorify God.” In the midst of this discussion, “the disciple that Jesus loved,” clearly meaning the Apostle John, appears. Simon asks Jesus what the fate of John is to be. Jesus replies, “It is my will that he remain.” The passage then points out that John “is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things” referring to the Gospel of John itself.
Below is the entire passage. Notice how the author goes to great lengths to avoid calling the Apostles by their real names, Simon and John.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.”
(This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this he said to him, “Follow me.”
Peter turned and saw following them the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had lain close to his breast at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?”
When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?”
Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!”
The saying spread abroad among the brethren that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”
This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true.
John 21:18–24
This passage, which is the conclusion to Jesus’ ministry, is exactly parallel to Titus’ judgments concerning the rebel leaders Simon and John at the conclusion of his campaign through Judea. Thus, at the conclusion of the Gospel above, Jesus tells Simon “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.” Jesus tells Simon to “follow me” and that his death will “glorify God.” However, Jesus also states that it is his will that John is to “remain.”
A
t the conclusion of his campaign through Judea, Titus, after capturing “Simon,” girds him in “bonds” and sends him “where you do not wish to go,” this being Rome. During the parade of conquest at Rome, Simon follows, that is, is “led” to a “death, to glorify God,” the god “glorified” being Titus’ father, the diuus Vespasian. However, it is Titus’ will to spare the other leader of the rebellion, John.
Notice that in the following passage, Josephus records Simon’s fate before John’s, just as it occurs in John 21. A seemingly innocuous detail but one that I will show has great significance.
Simon … was forced to surrender himself, as we shall relate hereafter; so he was reserved for the triumph, and to be then slain; as was John condemned to perpetual imprisonment.78
Josephus also records that Jesus’ vision of Simon “following” also comes to pass for the rebel leader Simon.
Simon … had then been led in this triumph among the captives; a rope had also been put upon his head, and he had been drawn into a proper place in the forum.79
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