ra18 within a few years after the roman conquest ~

OF
YERUSHALAYIM,
AN ENTIRE CROP OF LANDLESS PEASANTS
FOUND THEMSELVES STRIPPED OF THEIR PROPERTY WITH NO WAY
TO FEED THEMSELVES OR THEIR FAMILIES! Many of these peasants
immigrated to the cities to find work?

But in Galilee,
a handful of displaced farmers and landowners
exchanged their plows for swords and began fighting back against those they deemed responsible
for their woes! From their hiding places in the caves and grottoes of the Galilean countryside, these peasant-
warriors launched a wave of attacks against the Jewish Aristocracy
and the agents of the Roman Republic!

They roamed through the provinces,
gathering to themselves those in dire distress, those who were dispossessed and mired in debt!
Like 'jewish robin hoods', they also robbed the rich and, on occasion, gave to the poor: to the faithful,
these peasant gangs were nothing less than the physical embodiment of the anger and suffering of the poor?
They were like heroes: symbols of the original righteous zeal against cruel Roman suppression of and aggression,
almost literally seen as dispensers of divine justice of old to the traitorous Jews?! The Romans had quite a different
word for them; they liked to call them LESTAI: BANDITS, ROBBERS, SCUM OF THE EARTH?!! "Bandit" was the generic
term for any Rebel or Insurrectionist who employed
armed violence against Rome or
their Jewish collaborators!

To these romans,
a word like "bandit" was simply
synonymous with "thief" & "rabble-rouser!" But THESE
were no common criminals: these bandits represented the very first stirrings of what would become
a nationalist resistance movement against the Roman Occupation; this may have been very much
like a peasant revolt: these bandit-gangs hailed from impoverished villages like Emmaus, Beth-
Choron, and Beth-LECHEM, but it was something else, too; THESE BANDITS CLAIMED
TO BE AGENTS OF GOD'S RETRIBUTION! They cloaked their leaders in the shiny
old/new emblems of biblical kings & mythic heroes &
presented their actions as a prelude
for the holy restoration
of God's kingdom
on this earth!

The bandits
tapped into the widespread apocalyptic expectations
that had gripped Jews of Palestine in the wake of the weird Roman invasion!
One of the most fearsome of all these bandits, the charismatic bandit chief Yechezkel,
openly declared himself to BE THE prophesied & expected messiah,
the promised one who would
restore the Jews
TO GLORY!
18 nov 2015 - bewerkt op 21 nov 2015 - meld ongepast verhaal
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