missing from the accounts of Jesus’ career in the gospels. Never-
theless, there are hints that, in spite of his eschewing violence,
Jesus’ challenges to the priestly authorities in Jerusalem were
sufficient to attract the suspicion that he was some kind of revo-
lutionary. In one of the gospel narratives, Jesus asks the guards
sent to arrest him in the garden of Gethsemane if they think he
is a bandit (le ̄ste ̄s:Mark14.48). Another link is suggested in the
Acts of the Apostles’ account of the debate of the High Priest and
the Sadducees at Jerusalem about what action to take against
Jesus’ followers. The Jewish elder Gamaliel is reported as urging
caution, saying that if the movement that acknowledged Jesus as
Messiah was not inspired by God, then it, like the movements led
by earlier insurrectionists, would fail (Acts5.34–9). As a result
of such hints, the issue of banditry has become something of a
leitmotiv in much modern research into the historical Jesus.^3
Even if Jesus can be identified as the leader of a protest
movement that, in spite of its non-violence, came to be perceived
as a threat by the Romans and their Jewish elite allies, how could
the leader of such a movement come to be regarded by some
as the Messiah? According to prophecies in Jewish scriptures
(many of them quoted or alluded to in the New Testament) the
Messiah was someone who would come in the future to deliver
Israel, God’s people, from its enemies. Now some Jewish resis-
tance leaders certainly seem to have perceived themselves as
possessing some religious significance. Among the bandit move-
ments mentioned by Gamaliel in his speech in Actswas one led
by a certain Theudas, whose revolt is also discussed by Josephus.
During the governorship of Cuspius Fadus, early in the reign of
the emperor Claudius (41–54), this Theudas led some four
hundred followers to the river Jordan. He claimed to be a prophet
and announced that he would part the waters of the river to allow
his followers to pass through. In the event, however, his career
was cut short by Fadus’ cavalry, who slew Theudas and many of
his associates (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities20.97–8; cf. Acts
5.36). Theudas’ prophecy about the waters of the Jordan was
clearly modelled on Moses’ parting of the Red Sea during theCONTEXTS FOR THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY
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