Jesus ben Ananias

Last updated

Jesus ben Ananias ("the son of Ananias" [rendered as the "son of Ananus" in the Whiston translation]) [1] was a plebeian farmer, who, four years before the First Jewish-Roman War began in 66 AD, went around Jerusalem prophesying the city's destruction. The Jewish leaders of Jerusalem turned him over to the Romans, who tortured him. The procurator Lucceius Albinus took him to be a madman and released him. He continued his prophecy for more than seven years until he was killed by a stone from a catapult during the Roman siege of Jerusalem during the war. His name is rendered ישוע בן חנניה (Yeshua ben Hananiah) in modern Hebrew histories.

But a further portent was even more alarming. Four years before the war, when the city was enjoying profound peace and prosperity, there came to the feast at which it is the custom of all Jews to erect tabernacles to God, one Jesus, son of Ananias, a rude peasant, who suddenly began to cry out, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against the bridegroom and the bride, a voice against all the people." Day and night he went about all the alleys with this cry on his lips. Some of the leading citizens, incensed at these ill-omened words, arrested the fellow and severely chastised him. But he, without a word on his own behalf or for the private ear of those who smote him, only continued his cries as before. Thereupon, the magistrates, supposing, as was indeed the case, that the man was under some supernatural impulse, brought him before the Roman governor; there, although flayed to the bone with scourges, he neither sued for mercy nor shed a tear, but, merely introducing the most mournful of variations into his utterances, responded to each lashing with "Woe to Jerusalem!" When Albinus, the governor, asked him who and whence he was and why he uttered these cries, he answered him never a word, but unceasingly reiterated his dirge over the city, until Albinus pronounced him a maniac and let him go. During the whole period up to the outbreak of war he neither approached nor was seen talking to any of the citizens, but daily, like a prayer that he had conned, repeated his lament, "Woe to Jerusalem!" He neither cursed any of those who beat him from day to day, nor blessed those who offered him food: to all men that melancholy presage was his one reply. His cries were loudest at the festivals. So for seven years and five months he continued his wail, his voice never flagging nor his strength exhausted, until in the siege, having seen his presage verified, he found his rest. For, while going his round and shouting in piercing tones from the wall, "Woe once more to the city and to the people and to the temple," as he added a last word, "and woe to me also," a stone hurled from the ballista struck and killed him on the spot. So with those ominous words still upon his lips he passed away. – Book 6, Chapter 5, Section 3 of the historian Flavius Josephus' The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josephus</span> Roman–Jewish historian and military leader (c. 37–c. 100)

Flavius Josephus was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing The Jewish War, he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Titus</span> Roman emperor from AD 79 to 81

Titus Caesar Vespasianus was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death.

The Sicarii were a splinter group of the Jewish Zealots who, in the decades preceding Jerusalem's destruction in 70 CE, strongly opposed the Roman occupation of Judea and attempted to expel them and their sympathizers from the area. The Sicarii carried sicae, or small daggers, concealed in their cloaks. At public gatherings, they pulled out these daggers to attack Romans and alleged Roman sympathizers alike, blending into the crowd after the deed to escape detection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herod Agrippa II</span> 1st-century Judean ruler

Herod Agrippa II, officially named Marcus Julius Agrippa and sometimes shortened to Agrippa, was the last ruler from the Herodian dynasty, reigning over territories outside of Judea as a Roman client. Agrippa II fled Jerusalem in 66, fearing the Jewish uprising and supported the Roman side in the First Jewish–Roman War.

The Pharisees were a Jewish social movement and a school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hasmonean dynasty</span> Dynasty of Judea (140–37 BCE)

The Hasmonean dynasty was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during the Hellenistic times of the Second Temple period, from c. 140 BCE to 37 BCE. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously in the Seleucid Empire, and from roughly 110 BCE, with the empire disintegrating, Judea gained further autonomy and expanded into the neighboring regions of Perea, Samaria, Idumea, Galilee, and Iturea. The Hasmonean rulers took the Greek title basileus ("king") as the kingdom became a regional power for several decades. Forces of the Roman Republic intervened in the Hasmonean Civil War in 63 BCE and made it into a client state, marking the decline of Hasmonean dynasty; Herod the Great displaced the last reigning Hasmonean client-ruler in 37 BCE.

The Sadducees were a sect of Jews active in Judea during the Second Temple period, from the second century BCE to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Sadducees are described in contemporary literary sources in contrast to the two other major sects at the time, the Pharisees and the Essenes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Jewish–Roman War</span> Rebellion against Roman rule (66–73 CE)

The First Jewish–Roman War, sometimes called the Great Jewish Revolt, or The Jewish War, was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire fought in Roman-controlled Judea, resulting in the destruction of Jewish towns, the displacement of its people and the appropriation of land for Roman military use, as well as the destruction of the Jewish Temple and polity.

The Zealots were a political movement in 1st-century Second Temple Judaism which sought to incite the people of Judea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Holy Land by force of arms, most notably during the First Jewish–Roman War (66–70). Zealotry was the term used by Josephus for a "fourth sect" or "fourth Jewish philosophy" during this period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Hyrcanus</span> Hasmonean ruler

John Hyrcanus was a Hasmonean (Maccabean) leader and Jewish high priest of the 2nd century BCE. In rabbinic literature he is often referred to as Yoḥanan Cohen Gadol, "John the High Priest".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)</span> Part of the First Jewish–Roman War

The siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War, in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Judaea. Following a five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the Second Jewish Temple.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judaea (Roman province)</span> Province of the Roman Empire (6–135 CE)

Judaea was a Roman province from 6 to 132 CE, which incorporated the Levantine regions of Judea, Samaria and Idumea, extending over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Judea. The name Judaea was derived from the Iron Age Kingdom of Judah.

Simon bar Giora was the leader of one of the major Judean rebel factions during the First Jewish–Roman War in 1st-century Roman Judea, who vied for control of the Jewish polity while attempting to expel the Roman army, but incited a bitter internecine war in the process.

Lucceius Albinus was the 6th Roman Procurator of Judea from 62 until 64 and the governor of Mauretania Tingitana from 64 until 69.

Ananus ben Ananus was a Herodian-era High Priest of Israel in Jerusalem, Judea Province. He was the High Priest who ordered the execution by stoning of James, the brother of Jesus, according to the Antiquities of the Jews of Josephus. A delegation sent by citizens upset over the perceived breach of justice met Lucceius Albinus before he reached Judea, and Albinus responded with a letter informing Ananus that it was illegal to convene the Sanhedrin without Albinus' permission and threatening to punish the priest. Ananus was therefore deposed by King Herod Agrippa II before Albinus's arrival and replaced with Jesus ben Damneus.

Ananias son of Nedebeus was a high priest who, according to the Acts of the Apostles, presided during the trials of the apostle Paul at Jerusalem and Caesarea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siege of Jerusalem (63 BC)</span> Part of Pompey the Greats campaigns in the East

The siege of Jerusalem occurred during Pompey the Great's campaigns in the East, shortly after his successful conclusion of the Third Mithridatic War. Pompey had been asked to intervene in a dispute over inheritance to the throne of the Hasmonean Kingdom, which turned into a war between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. His conquest of Jerusalem, however, spelled the end of Jewish independence and the incorporation of Judea as a client kingdom of the Roman Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acts 23</span> Chapter of the New Testament

Acts 23 is the twenty-third chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the period of Paul's imprisonment in Jerusalem then in Caesarea. The book containing this chapter is anonymous but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.

Caesar's Messiah is a 2005 book by Joseph Atwill that argues that the New Testament Gospels were written by a group of individuals connected to the Flavian family of Roman emperors: Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. The authors were mainly Flavius Josephus, Berenice, and Tiberius Julius Alexander, with contributions from Pliny the Elder. Although Vespasian and Titus had defeated Jewish nationalist Zealots in the First Jewish–Roman War of 70 AD, the emperors wanted to control the spread of Judaism and moderate its political virulence and continuing militancy against Rome. Christianity, a pacifist and pro-Roman authority religion, was their solution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hasmonean Civil War</span> Civil war between two claimants to the Hasmonean Jewish Crown

The Hasmonean Civil War was a civil war between two claimants to the Hasmonean Jewish Crown. What began as an inter-Jewish conflict became a highly decisive conflict that included the Nabataean Kingdom and ended with Roman involvement. This conflict resulted in the loss of Jewish independence.

References

  1. The Wars Of The Jews Or The History Of The Destruction Of Jerusalem Book VI, chapter 5, paragraph 3
  2. 1957 Journal of Biblical Literature, Volumes 76-77 Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis pg 104